PRESS RELEASE: Brno – International capital of Agroforestry for a week; EURAF board elections; Brno declaration.
Brno – International Capital of Agroforestry for a week
At the 7th European Agroforestry Conference, held in Brno (Czechia) at Mendel university under the auspices of Minister of Agriculture Marek Výborný and Minister of the Environment Petr Hladík, 396 delegates from 43 countries heard 137 presentations on studies exploring the potential benefits of agroforestry. Many of these studies reinforced the scientific evidence of the multiple positive benefits of agroforestry for farm economics, rural landscapes, soil health, biodiversity and climate change mitigation and adaptation.
As the main organiser of the event, Jakub Houska (Head of the Department of Landscape Ecology of the Silva Tarouca Research Institute of Landscape and Ornamental Gardening and chair of the Czech Agroforestry Association) declared the congress a success: ‘Brno was the international capital of agroforestry for a week – this motivates us to continue our work on bridging research and policy, while also working closer with farmers and foresters’.
The Congress was officially opened by the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski, who in his speech stressed the importance of increasing the number of trees in our agricultural landscapes and indicated that agroforestry will become one of the first, if not the first, carbon certification methodology available.
EURAF board elections
‘We in the Czech Republic have the largest agricultural land blocks in Europe, so agroforestry landscape features may divide them and thus contribute to strengthening on-farm climate resilience and improving biodiversity, without compromising production‘, said Bohdan Lojka, the newly elected President of the European Federation of Agroforestry. Alongside Lojka (Czech University of Life Sciences), the new Board of the Federation is composed of: Maureen Kilgore, Vice President (Irish Agroforestry Forum – farmer); Manuel Bertomeu, Secretary (University of Extremadura); Anders Lindén, Vice Secretary (Agroforestry Sweden – farmer); Julia Günzel, Treasurer ( German Agroforestry Association); Stéphane Delogne, Vice-Treasurer (Belgium – farmer). For the first time in the history of EURAF, half of the newly elected Board consists of farmers.
Brno Declaration
At the closing ceremony of the congress, the participants approved the ‘Brno Agroforestry Declaration’ (Déclaration de Brno sur l’agroforesterie – FR; Brünner Erklärung für Agroforstwirtschaft – DE). The objective of the Declaration is to highlight key actions needed to accelerate the expansion of agroforestry systems across Europe. The Declaration focuses on the impact of agroforestry on farms and the sustainable development indicators listed in the EU Taxonomy Regulation: climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, sustainable water resources, pollution control, biodiversity and ecosystems, and circular economy.
Read more about these topics in EURAF’s latest Press Release
