Agroforestry Systems - Call For Papers : Collection based on 7th European Agroforestry Conference – EURAF 2024 in Brno

This conference is placed under the topic 

Agroforestry – regenerating landscapes and diversifying production in Europe

For centuries, agriculture in Europe has been based on a strong integration between herbaceous crops, multifunctional trees, animal husbandry, and forestry management. This has given rise to complex landscapes, often characterized by intercropping practices between trees and agricultural activities, both in the agricultural and forestry sectors. Since the Industrial Revolution, this complexity has been progressively replaced by agricultural and forestry practices basically based on monoculture approach, heavily dependent on energy and chemical inputs external to the farm. Agricultural productivity has significantly increased, but to the detriment of ecosystems resilience and their regenerative capacity. Currently, European agriculture is facing the global emergencies of Climate Change and the ecosystems degradation in terms of soil fertility loss and dramatic decline in natural and agronomic biodiversity. Europe seeks to place itself at the forefront of the more urgent than ever Global Green Transition to overcome the aforementioned problems, with crucial technological, economic and social challenges.  The transition from resource-consuming agriculture to regenerative agriculture is urgent. Agroforestry, the integration of woody perennials with livestock and/or crop production, is an important regenerative agriculture practice which can achieve a greater diversity or quantity of outputs with fewer non-farm inputs, whilst improving a farm’s resilience to climate change. Almost three decades of research on agroforestry systems in Europe have proven that both traditional and innovative agroforestry systems maintain food production whilst addressing these issues. Well-designed agroforestry practices, adapted to local site and socioeconomic conditions, can also enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services at the landscape level. Nevertheless, the re-adoption of agroforestry in Europe is currently extremely challenging, despite the interest of both farmers and policy makers.

This timely conference covered research and practical sessions that address the opportunities and challenges in promoting the integration of trees with farming. Discussions in plenary, thematic oral and poster sessions, and workshops provided participants with new ideas to enhance the role that agroforestry can play in diversifying production, enhancing soil health and biodiversity, addressing climate change, creating profitable businesses, and regenerating landscapes in Europe. 

This special collection will gather the most relevant outcomes of the research presented at the conference. Papers can address agroforestry challenges from various points of view, with diverse methodological approaches. They should provide the scientific audience with new ideas to enhance our understanding of the potential capacity of agroforestry to face future crises, together with meeting the challenge of maintaining the productivity of the European agriculture. 

We invite all the participants to the conference to submit manuscripts to this special collection. Research papers and opinion papers are both welcome.

Please note that all submitted manuscripts will follow peer-review criteria per standard journal submissions.

Submissions close: 31 December 2024.

To submit your manuscript to this Collection please follow the link here.

In the ‘Details’ tab, authors must and select ‘7th European Agroforestry Conference – EURAF’ from the drop-down menu under ‘Collection’.

For any enquiries about the suitability of papers, please contact the Lead Guest Editor Bohdan Lojka (lojka@ftz.czu.cz), or the Editor-in-Chief of Agroforestry Systems, Christian Dupraz (christian.dupraz@inrae.fr)