Trees, Crops and Carbon
![Faidherbia system -- photo provided by World Agroforestry Center](/sites/default/files/faidherbia.jpg)
Agroforestry – combining trees with crops -- can play a dramatic role in improving yields, food security and rural incomes, restoring degraded lands, increasing carbon sequestration and taking pressure off indigenous forests.
At a lunch-time discussion at the World Bank in Washington DC on June 10th, 2010, Dr. Dennis Garrity, Director General of the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) and author of Creating an Evergreen Agriculture in Africa, discussed agroforestry's potential in developing countries, citing large-scale results achieved in Malawi and Niger for example.
After the talk, Dr. Garrity answered questions about the unique potential of the faidherbia system, its ability to increase fertility while sequestring significant amounts of carbon, and the type of partnership required to help spread a technology whose time has come.
Faidherbia trees have unique properties
Climate change has elevated the importance of agroforestry
Dramatic potential to sequester carbon
"We've reached a tipping point"
Spreading technology requires a community approach