Agroforestry combines trees, crops, and livestock into systems that present an exciting nature-based approach for climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation. This narrative study summarizes the current evidence on carbon sequestration and biodiversity outcomes across a variety of agroforestry practices such as silvopastoral systems, alley cropping, homegardens, and multistrata agroforestry in tropical, temperate, and dryland biomes. Furthermore, agroforestry systems offer significant socio-economic benefits by enhancing rural livelihoods and promoting sustainable land management practices that support long-term ecosystem resilience Evidence from empirical studies, modelling studies, remote sensing, and socio-economic analyses is synthesised to characterise carbon stocks in aboveground biomass, roots, and soils, and to compare taxonomic, functional, and structural diversity of agroforestry systems relative to conventional agriculture and forests. Agroforestry systems can sequester substantial amounts of carbon—ranging from about 0.3 to more than 15 metric tonnes of carbon per hectare per year in aboveground biomass—and can store up to approximately 300 metric tonnes of carbon per hectare in soils. However, there is considerable variability in the carbon storage potential due to species composition, climatic conditions, stand age, and management intensity. Often, soil organic carbon accounts for most of the material stored, while nitrogen-fixing and deep-rooted species promote belowground carbon sequestration. Notably, biodiversity consistently exceeds levels accrued in monocultures with increases in plant, insect, bird, and microbial taxa attributed to increased structural complexity and decreased inputs into the system, although variability from strata-to-strata does exist, and agroforestry systems do not typically reach the biodiversity levels of intact forests. Significant gaps in knowledge are recognized across geographic and taxonomic coverage, permanence of carbon storage, standardization of methods, and socio-economic dimensions. These gaps can be reduced through comparable monitoring frameworks, landscape-level experiments, social-science inquiry, and policy evaluation, thereby improving the quantification of climate benefits from implementing agroforestry practices. Agroforestry is identified as a valuable approach for achieving climate and biodiversity targets when designs are matched to specific places and supported by enabling policy.
Withaningsih et al. (Thu,) studied this question.