Agroforestry Standards for Regenerative Agriculture

Craig R. Elevitch, D. Niki Mazaroli and Diane Ragone
Additional contact information
Craig R. Elevitch: Agroforestry Net, 76-5921 Mamalahoa Hwy, #5, Holualoa, HI 96725, USA
D. Niki Mazaroli: Strategy Research Science, Ventura, CA 93003, USA
Diane Ragone: Breadfruit Institute, National Tropical Botanical Garden, 3530 Papalina Road, Kalaheo, HI 96741, USA

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 9, 1-21

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 USA 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; breadfruit; agroecosystem; regenerative agriculture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/9/3337/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/9/3337/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:9:p:3337-:d:170571

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().