Connecting agroforestry innovations across Europe
Agroforestry is a nature-based solution (NbS) that combines trees with crops or livestock to improve soil health, biodiversity and climate adaptation. Across Europe, many promising ideas are emerging. The EU-funded FOREST4EU(opens in new window) project was launched to connect innovative projects and ideas, and to identify and assess local innovations that might work elsewhere. “We knew operational groups were generating valuable results, but they were very local,” explains FOREST4EU coordinator Francesca Giannetti. “A problem in Italy is often the same one in Spain or Slovenia, so we wanted to make these innovations available at European level.”
Mapping agroforestry solutions
To build this shared knowledge base, FOREST4EU contacted operational groups directly, connecting with 86 of them and collecting information on 175 innovations across five innovation topic hubs – including one dedicated to agroforestry. To identify which innovations were most suitable for wider uptake, FOREST4EU held nine national prioritisation workshops across Croatia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. Practitioners such as farmers, forest owners and advisers selected the innovations they wanted to know more about. This ensured that capacity building focused on practical needs, including climate adaptation, soil and water management, non-wood forest products and agroforestry practices. For the innovations in highest demand, the consortium co-developed additional materials with the original operational groups, ranging from technical briefs and videos to hands-on guidance. Rather than creating a new platform, FOREST4EU published these materials through channels practitioners already use, such as national technical journals and existing repositories. As Giannetti notes: “We decided not to build another knowledge platform but use existing repositories and national channels that people already read.”
Nature-based solutions in practice
Within the agroforestry hub, FOREST4EU highlighted innovations that support NbSs for soil and water management under climate pressure. Several operational groups developed tools to monitor water movement during extreme rainfall, using maps and field data to understand how forests and tree-based systems can reduce erosion and flood risks. In drought-prone areas of Italy and Portugal, farmers are testing the Keyline approach (a landscape management system to manage water run-off) to channel scarce water to young trees and crops. The project also showed how other innovations can reinforce these NbSs. Remote-sensing tools using drones and satellite imagery to detect drought stress and pest outbreaks in Mediterranean forests were adapted for use in Latvia through hands-on training with real data, while the Keyline demonstrations illustrated how agroforestry designs can improve water distribution in dry landscapes. Study visits further supported peer learning, with at least one participant per partner country joining each exchange. “The best thing was to share knowledge and bring people together,” adds Giannetti. “Many participants are still in contact because they are facing the same problems and can learn from each other.”
From innovation to long-term adoption
The project produced six policy briefs, including multiple extended summaries describing forestry and agroforestry innovations. The goal of these is to make local solutions easier to understand and transfer. In Croatia, project exchanges also helped to prompt agreement at the ministerial level to open common agricultural policy(opens in new window) innovation measures to the forestry sector in future programming. As FOREST4EU concludes in December 2025, it will be followed on by FORADVISE, a new Horizon Europe project that will build on FOREST4EU’s networks and help to further strengthen advisory systems for forestry and agroforestry across Europe.
