Learn more about trees and farming at Agroforestry Open Weekend 2023

Calling all farmers, foresters and farm advisors! Are you interested in finding out more about the promising technique of agroforestry? Or perhaps you’re already working with trees but are considering new ways to do so? The Agroforestry Open Weekend 2023, coordinated by David Wolfe (Wakelyns) and Rosemary Venn (Coventry University) is your chance to do just that. 

Farmers across the UK, Ireland and beyond, already practising agroforestry in some form, will be opening their gates to the public over the 19 to 21 May 2023 weekend.

As an annual, grassroots, farmer-led initiative this is an opportunity to share best (and worst!) practices, lessons from the field and discuss some of the challenges and opportunities of integrating trees into the farmed landscape first hand. 

Having traditionally been advised against mixing trees in the farmed landscape, farmers are now under pressure to start re-integrating trees. The options for doing so are many and varied, as well as being location and farmer specific. Funding for establishment and maintenance is scarce and unreliable and there remain issues around tenancy. 

Given the mounting pressures from governments, food companies, the public, and nature herself, finding ways to increase tree cover, improve the soil, protect biodiversity, mitigate flooding, mitigate the climate crisis (all whilst maintaining food production) is now more important than ever.

Enter agroforestry… 

If you’re intrigued about this system and want to see it in action, then come along to a farm near you for the Agroforestry Open Weekend 2023. Having started in May 2021 with six farms in East Anglia, the initiative now has over 35 participating in 2023 with the aim for this to keep growing. 

To find out who’s participating in your area, how to book and more (including how to open your farm if you have agroforestry yourself), follow the link here: https://agroforestryopenweekend.org/