VERDICT ON AGROFORESTRY IN THE GREEN DEAL

Despite the encouraging advice given by the Commission to Member States in the Green Deal and Biodiversity Strategy, there remains great reluctance in Agricultural Ministries to implement agroforestry options. Recent analysis of CAP (Lawson & De Boeck 2023) strategic plans shows that few Member States have adopted agroforestry measures on a significant scale in Pillar I or Pillar II of theCAP.An analysis of Landscape Features in the 28 EU Strategic Plans shows that not all countries have chosen to record tree based features (Table 2) of: hedges or woody strips (20), trees in line (21), trees in groups (24), isolated trees (19) and forest edge strips (7).

Semi-confidential monitoring statistics for the previous CAP also show very disappointing fulfillment of earlier promises for both afforestation (Measure 8.1) and agroforestation (Measure 8.2).Commitments were made to plant 600 000 ha of new forest in the period 2015-2020, and by Feb 2023 only 20 000 ha of planting was recorded. Commitments were made to establish 74 000 ha of new agroforest in the same period, and by Feb 2023 only 4 000 ha had been achieved. While more will be planted in the next few years as the 2015-23 CAP is completed, these statistics demonstrate the inability of Member States to take their own forestry and agroforestry targets seriously.

Failure to achieve these planting targets will also negatively affect the ability of Member States to achieve their 2030 LULUCF goals.