Crib sheet
Agroforestry combines trees and shrubs with crop and livestock farming systems. This might be as simple as planting hedgerows or as complex as silvoarable cropping, where cropping trees (apples, for example) are grown alongside annual harvests in order to protect the soil and support biodiversity while growing an extra product.
PHOTOGRAPHS: ISTOCK/GETTYIMAGES
Sustainable is the buzzword in every industry from clothing to restaurants to carmaking, and in 2021 the UK government launched a long-term plan to transform the country’s food production system, calling it The Path to Sustainable Farming. It has many admirable objectives but there’s a new groundswell of opinion that being sustainable isn’t enough – the current farming system has been run into the ground and needs to be radically improved rather than maintained and sustained.