Brazil: key success factors for agroforestry

Building the case for Agroforestry

Agroforestry integrates crops and trees on the same land, creating a more diverse and sustainable agricultural system. By combining different plant species, agroforestry offers a variety of food and income sources throughout the year, helping farmers avoid the risks of relying on a single crop.

This diversity strengthens livelihoods and provides more stable returns, as agroforestry systems are less vulnerable to market fluctuations and the unpredictable impacts of climate change. In addition to economic benefits, agroforestry also supports environmental health. Trees sequester carbon, helping to mitigate climate change, while their presence boosts biodiversity and makes farms more resilient to environmental stress.

As the world looks for more sustainable and nature-inclusive agricultural practices, agroforestry stands out as a powerful solution. Across South America, numerous successful examples demonstrate how this nature-inclusive method can support both people and the planet.

Field trip and key learnings

Tropenbos's visit to Brazil included a field trip to Embrapa Cerrados, one of the 43 research centers of Brazil's largest agricultural research institution. This Embrapa unit is dedicated to promoting agriculture in the cerrado and played a key role in the successful adaptation of cash crops in the biome. The team also visited the Brasília Botanical Garden to familiarize themselves with the region’s typical cerrado vegetation. The field trip concluded with a visit to Amigos do Cerrado, an organic farm that practices agroforestry with lemons as its primary cash crop.

At Embrapa Cerrados researchers explained that while landowners in the region commonly incorporate forests into their livestock systems, they predominantly rely on non-native species such as African mahogany and eucalyptus. This is due to their rapid return on investment and the legal protection of most native Brazilian species, which prohibits their commercial cultivation. The main agroforestry system promoted by Embrapa is the so-called ILPF (Integração Lavoura - Pecuária - Floresta), which integrates pastures, annual crops (such as soy-beans and corn) and eucaliptus trees with up to 30% shading. 

At the Brasilia Botanical Garden we followed a short trail through the thicket in order to show the typical sparse and dry vegetation that caracterizes the cerrado Biome. In contrast with semi-arid vegetion such as in the Sahel, however, the cerrado is known for its many underground water-reservoirs, resulting in a more biodiverse vegetation, with most of its biomass lying below ground-level. Beacause of these acquifers, the cerrado at the Central Brazilian Plateau, were Brasilia lies, is also the source of many Amazonian rivers, such as the Araguaia and Tocantins.

The Amigos do Cerrado organic farm spans 250 hectares, of which only 32 hectares are under cultivation; the remaining area is preserved as native vegetation. The farm demonstrates a successful integration of fruit crops (lemons, mandarins, and baru nuts) as well as timber species (African mahogany). Notably, banana trees are also intercropped, with their trunks being cut and laid to decompose beneath the lemon trees during the dry season to serve as an additional water source. This system highlights the viability of agroforestry in the Cerrado biome, particularly in close proximity to a major urban center like Brasília, where market access emerges as a key success factor.

Next steps

The LAN teams in South America are organizing several upcoming agroforestry events, including a focus on promoting sustainable cacao cultivation within agroforestry systems and presenting our study on "Key Success Factors and Scaling Opportunities for Agroforestry" at COP 30.