CONTEXT: Agroforestry is gaining interest in in Europe however the trade-offs associated with its uptake are still uncertain. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to explore the sustainability trade-offs and synergies associated with a range of agroforestry systems in Europe and assess the underlying reasons for different performance regarding environmental, economic, social and governance domains. METHODS: Five case-studies of agroforestry from nothern, eastern and southern Europe were assessed using an established sustainability assessment tool, the Public Goods tool (PG tool). The case studies were selected to represent a range of innovative and traditional systems, encompassing arable and livestock, wood fuel and tree fruit crops. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: All five of the case studies were performing well across a diverse range of sus- tainability criteria, with average scores of three out of five or higher across the assessment categories. Social capital and animal health and welfare management scores were particularly high, due to high rates of on-farm employment of between 0.4 and 2.3 full-time labour units per hectare, and a high volume of local sales alongside effective health planning and husbandry through health planning and a lack of restrictions on natural behaviour. Land Equivalent Ratios were greater than 1 within each case and were particularly high for established silvo- pasture systems (over 1.5). Fossil fuel use was considerably lower than the industry average in most of the case studies (between 17 and 92% of the country-average per hectare for three of the cases). Economic performance was highly variable, with high labour costs contributing to negative margins. SIGNIFICANCE: The assessments show that agroforestry systems have considerable potential to contribute to multiple sustainability objectives, and that environmental and social sustainability objectives are particularly well addressed through increased efficiency of land-use, increased opportunities for on-farm employment and engagement with local communities. However considerable financial barriers still exist and may prevent its further uptake. Promoting the future uptake of agroforestry in Europe therefore requires the commitment of multiple actors in supply chains to plan policies, farm-practices and knowledge exchange that can support the delivery of sustainability benefits.

Existing landscape features, such as field boundary hedgerows, can contribute to food, fodder, material, and energy production for an EU bio-based circular economy. Recent trials undertaken by the project team in the UK demonstrated that hedgerows can be managed to produce woodfuel of a quality that meets industry standards. However, to be attractive to farmers, woodfuel production from hedgerows must be profitable. This paper uses the FarmSAFE model to undertake a financial assessment with data generated from these trials. The net present value of a standard hedgerow management method (flailing every 2 years) was compared with those from alternative hedgerow management scenarios for woodfuel production over a 60 year time horizon. Using data from the hedgerow trials, the results showed that coppicing hedgerows for woodfuel production could provide a profit to the farmer. The sale of woodchips into an off-farm market was found to be profitable if harvesting with tree shears (medium scale harvesting capacity) or a Bracke felling head (large scale harvesting capacity), but chainsaw harvesting (small scale harvesting capacity) was unprofitable. When considering the use of woodchips on farm to replace purchased woodchip or heating oil, the financial benefit to the farmer increased. Sensitivity analyses showed that the use of medium scale machinery (tree shears) made the hedgerow enterprise most resilient to changes in prices, grants, and costs. This scale of machinery is appropriate for local energy production whilst also being affordable to farmers and local contractors.

Sustainability assessment is a complex field and its uptake amongst agricultural producers limited. Furthermore, the scope of current sustainability assessment tools does not extend to systems in which food production is integrated with production of non-food biomass (e.g. agroforestry). Participatory approaches to tool development offer a means to overcome the subjectivity of researcher-led tool design and thus the potential to increase relevance and engagement. In this work we develop a Delphi-style methodology as a means to produce a sustainability assessment tool suitable to assess and feedback on an integrated food/non-food system. Using a widely accepted agricultural sustainability framework and an existing farm sustainability assessment tool as a base, stakeholders were engaged with across six countries and multiple stakeholder groups to identify key indicators to be added to the tool. The methodology developed is described in detail, framed in the setting of this tool development process but providing a novel framework applicable to any situation where indicators must be developed for a complex issue of interest across multiple perspectives and stakeholder groups. Feedback and learning from the experience is provided. It was found that, contrary to some opinion, the inclusion of a face-to-face discussion round as part of the Delphi procedure provides a valuable means for information exchange and a move towards consensus amongst stakeholders. By using a 'snowball' approach to the in person discussions, it appears too that the loss of the voices of more socially retiring individuals can be avoided. Final levels of agreement vary substantially across the different areas of sustainability, with indicators in some areas (e.g. environmental integrity) proving much less controversial than others (e.g. social wellbeing). Despite this, the methodology effectively reaches a level of consensus amongst diverse stakeholders sufficient to guide the selection of sustainability indicators with a good level of confidence.

Organic farming is knowledge intensive. To support farmers in improving yields and organic agriculture systems, there is a need to improve how knowledge is shared. There is an established culture of sharing ideas, successes and failures in farming. The internet and information technologies open-up new opportunities for knowledge exchange involving farmers, researchers, advisors and other practitioners. The OK-Net Arable brought together practitioners from regional Farmer Innovation Groups across Europe in a multi-actor project to explore how online knowledge exchange could be improved. Feedback from the groups was obtained for 35 ‘tools’, defined as end-user materials, such as technical guides, videos and websites informing about practices in organic agriculture. The groups also selected one practice to test on farms, sharing their experiences with others through workshops, exchange visits and through videos. Farmers valued the same key elements in face-to-face exchanges (workshops and visits) as in online materials. These were the opportunity for visual observation, deeper understanding of the context in which a practice was being tried and details about what worked and what did not work. Videos, decision support tools and social media can provide useful mechanisms for taking knowledge exchange online, enabling farmers and researchers to share experiences and practical implications. Visual information, economics, details of the context, successes and failures were considered to be critical factors in good knowledge exchange tools. Online platforms and forums should not be expected to replace but rather to complement face to face knowledge exchange in improving organic farming.