What Is Forest Farming?

Authors

Date of this Version

1-2012

Citation

Working Trees Info, January 2012

United States Department of Agriculture, National Agroforestry Center, Lincoln, Nebraska

Comments

United States government work

Abstract

What is forest farming?

Forest farming, or multi-story cropping, is a distinctive approach to land management that combines management practices of conventional forestry with those of small-scale farming or gardening to attain an environmentally and economically sustainable land-use system.

Typically, a forest farming system is established by thinning an existing woodland or plantation to leave the best canopy trees for continued timber production and to create the appropriate conditions that favor the understory crop.