Review
Version 2
Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed
Agroforestry Standards for Regenerative Agriculture
Version 1
: Received: 4 August 2018 / Approved: 5 August 2018 / Online: 5 August 2018 (13:00:37 CEST)
Version 2 : Received: 26 August 2018 / Approved: 29 August 2018 / Online: 29 August 2018 (08:52:12 CEST)
Version 3 : Received: 12 September 2018 / Approved: 12 September 2018 / Online: 12 September 2018 (13:56:22 CEST)
Version 2 : Received: 26 August 2018 / Approved: 29 August 2018 / Online: 29 August 2018 (08:52:12 CEST)
Version 3 : Received: 12 September 2018 / Approved: 12 September 2018 / Online: 12 September 2018 (13:56:22 CEST)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Elevitch, C.R.; Mazaroli, D.N.; Ragone, D. Agroforestry Standards for Regenerative Agriculture. Sustainability 2018, 10, 3337. Elevitch, C.R.; Mazaroli, D.N.; Ragone, D. Agroforestry Standards for Regenerative Agriculture. Sustainability 2018, 10, 3337.
Abstract
Agroforestry is increasingly being recognized as a holistic food production system that can have numerous significant environmental, economic, and social benefits. This growing recognition is paralleled in the U.S. by the budding interest in regenerative agriculture and motivation to certify regenerative practices. Current efforts to develop a regenerative agriculture certification offer an opportunity to consider agroforestry’s role in furthering regenerative goals. To understand this opportunity, we first examine how agroforestry practices can advance regenerative agriculture’s five core environmental concerns: soil fertility and health, water quality, biodiversity, ecosystem health, and carbon sequestration. Next, we review a subset of certification programs, standards, guidelines, and associated scientific literature to understand existing efforts to standardize agroforestry. We determine that development of an agroforestry standard alongside current efforts to certify regenerative agriculture offers an opportunity to leverage common goals and strengths of each. Additionally, we determine that there is a lack of standards with measurable criteria available for agroforestry, particularly in temperate locations. Lastly, we propose a framework and general, measurable criteria for an agroforestry standard that could potentially be implemented as a standalone standard or built into existing agriculture, forestry, or resource conservation certification programs.
Keywords
Agroforestry; ecosystem services; measurable criteria; certification standard; biodiversity; agroecosystem; regenerative agriculture
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Agricultural Science and Agronomy
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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