Potential Silvoarable Agroforestry Regions for Corylus avellana and Juglans regia in Scania, Sweden

Sammanfattning: Conventional agriculture in Sweden is facing challenges with low resilience to a changing climate and decreased biodiversity. Silvoarable agroforestry is an alternative land use practice that contain a woody perennial and crop in the same field. Trees on cultivated land break up large monocultures, increase biodiversity, creates functional diversity, and produces more commodities. This land use practice is being recognized as a method for the transition to a more sustainable agriculture. It is included in the new European Union Common Agricultural Policy (2023-2027), where farmers are eligible for subsides for their environmental and conservational efforts. Silvoarable practices are marginal in the Swedish context. It is relevant for farmers to know if they will be eligible for subsidies but also to guide policymaking and drive transition. This study aims to assess potential silvoarable agroforestry regions for two types of nut trees: Corylus avellana (common hazel) and Juglans regia (common walnut) in the county of Scania. Furthermore, to estimate the variation in suitability across these regions. Productive growth criteria were developed through literature review for the two species where annual precipitation, mean annual temperature, soil texture, soil depth, and soil moisture were found to be relevant criteria. Potential regions were identified using Boolean and fuzzy logic, where the Boolean analysis identified 3436.2 km2 of cultivated land that could be suitable for Corylus avellana and 1616.6 km2 of potentially suitable regions for Juglans regia. The fuzzy analysis identified 3864.2 km2 of potentially suitable cultivated land for Corylus avellana, where 553.1 km2 could be highly suitable (≥80% fuzzy membership). Using fuzzy logic, 1445.7 km2 were identified as potentially suitable for implementing Juglans regia, where 14.6 km2 could be highly suitable (≥80% fuzzy membership). Multiple opportunities are identified with implementing silvoarable agroforestry systems with Corylus avellana and Juglans regia, but the barriers need to be addressed for it to be beneficial. Stakeholders also need to be included. This study is limited to the available data and literature review, and only considers the potential implementation of Corylus avellana and Juglans regia. More field experiments are required to fully evaluate the suitability of silvoarable agroforestry systems in Scania. Future studies should consider what the suitability assessment would look like in a future climate projection and consider other types of trees and crop commodities.