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Getting Started in Agroforestry: Part 2, Markets

Agroforestry markets and marketing is one of the five key areas you should explore before establishing a new venture. After setting your production and conservation goals, your next planning step should focus on markets.

Where and how you sell the ‘fruits’ of your labour is ultimately the most important factor in the success of agroforestry or any agricultural endeavor. Producing the perfect berry crop, or veneer log, or experience, can bring satisfaction in, and of, itself. But if you can’t sell what you produce, you will fail.

And you can’t eat satisfaction, nor make a mortgage payment with it.

Getting Started in Agroforestry: Part 1

Failing to plan, is planning to fail

Agroforestry isn’t rocket science. It can be far more complicated than that. Planning for an agroforestry venture means keeping abreast of many moving parts. Each which may come with its own set of risks and uncertainties.

All of which can leave new producers or even seasoned veterans pondering where to start.

Riparian Health Part 4

This is the fourth post in a series on riparian health. It gets down to the ‘nitty-gritty’ of working through the questions. If you haven’t already done so, please read the previous articles on the importance of riparian areas and the need for assessments.

Successfully navigating the riparian health assessment (RHA) procedure benefits from three key habits: tuning your eyes, taking good notes and being systematic. It also requires being conscience of your biases. And, you should also have some understanding of what is normal, or what might be missing or modified.

Riparian Health Part 3

In the previous two posts in this series on riparian health, I covered the importance of riparian systems to agriculture, and the need for measuring and monitoring their health.

In this post I’ll share some pro-tips on setting up and conducting an assessment. These include:

Selecting an assessment area;
Setting its boundaries;
Assessent timing; and,
Overcoming evaluation biases.

Riparian Health Part 2

Riparian health is a key concept for agricultural stewardship. In my last post I discussed the value of riparian areas in agricultural settings. I also described the benefits of maintaining riparian zones to avoid on- and off-farm environmental impacts. In this post I will cover the importance of measuring and monitoring riparian areas.

What is Riparian Health?

Riparian health refers to the overall condition of the green zone. This score expresses how well the current structure functions relative to its full potential.