In response to the unsustainable practices and negative externalities of the modern industrial monocrop agriculture complex, there has been growing interest in permaculture and food forests as a sustainable way to produce food. Permaculture is a philosophy and set of practices that aims to create regenerative ecosystems that are self-sufficient and promote biodiversity. Food forests, also known as forest gardens, are an example of a permaculture design that mimics the structure and function of a natural forest ecosystem.
So, what exactly is a food forest? Essentially, it is a type of agroforestry system that combines fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, and perennial vegetables to create a diverse, low-maintenance food production system. The idea is to mimic the layers of a natural forest, with a canopy layer of tall trees, an understory layer of shorter trees and shrubs, a herbaceous layer of groundcovers and herbaceous plants, and a root layer of bulbs, tubers, and other perennial vegetables.
The goal of a food forest is not just to produce food, but to create a self-sustaining ecosystem that benefits both humans and the environment. By using permaculture principles like companion planting, nutrient cycling, and species symbiosis, a food forest can increase productivity and resilience while reducing the need for external inputs like pesticides and fertilizers.
One key aspect of food forests is the use of species symbiosis, or the interdependent relationships between different species in an ecosystem. In a food forest, each plant plays a specific role in the ecosystem, whether it is fixing nitrogen, providing shade, attracting pollinators, or repelling pests. By selecting plants that complement each other and create mutually beneficial relationships, a food forest can become a thriving, diverse ecosystem that supports a wide range of species.
Another key principle of permaculture and food forests is the idea of “stacking functions.” In other words, each element in the ecosystem should serve multiple functions to maximize productivity and efficiency. For example, a fruit tree can provide shade for an understory crop like berries, while also producing food and providing habitat for birds and insects. These species may act as predators to crop destroying pests.
Here are a few examples different species relationships that can be used in a permaculture food forest:
Nitrogen-Fixing Plants and Fruit Trees: Nitrogen-fixing plants like legumes capture nitrogen from the air and convert it into a form that other plants can use. By planting nitrogen-fixing plants in and around fruit trees, the trees can benefit from this natural source of fertilizer. In return, the trees can provide shade and support for the legumes, creating a mutually beneficial relationship.
Pollinator Plants and Fruit Trees: Most fruit trees require pollinators to produce fruit. By planting a diverse mix of pollinator-friendly plants like clover, borage, and comfrey around fruit trees, the food forest can attract bees and other beneficial insects that will help pollinate the trees. At the same time, these plants can provide habitat and food for a wide range of other beneficial insects and birds.
Pest-Repelling Plants and Companion Plants: Some plants have natural pest-repelling properties that can help protect other plants in the food forest. For example, marigolds are known to repel pests like nematodes, while garlic and onions can help repel pests like aphids and spider mites. By planting these plants in and around other plants that are susceptible to pests, the food forest can reduce the need for synthetic pesticides.
Groundcover Plants and Trees: Groundcover Plants: Strawberries, clover, and mint can help prevent soil erosion and retain moisture in the soil. By planting these plants around fruit trees and other tall plants, the food forest can create a natural mulch layer that will help retain water and nutrients in the soil. At the same time, the groundcover plants can provide food and habitat for a range of beneficial insects.
Food forests are also designed to be low-maintenance and require minimal inputs once established. By using perennial plants that come back year after year, a food forest can reduce the need for tillage and other soil-disturbing practices that can damage the ecosystem. And by mimicking the structure of a natural forest, a food forest can take advantage of natural processes like nutrient cycling and water retention.
Food forests are a promising example of how permaculture principles can be applied to agriculture to create sustainable, diverse ecosystems that benefit both humans and the environment. By using species symbiosis, stacking functions, and other permaculture techniques, food forests can increase productivity and resilience while reducing the need for external inputs and minimizing negative impacts on the environment. As we continue to face growing challenges in food production, food forests offer a promising alternative that can help us build a more sustainable future.
If you are interested in developing a food forest on your property, call Tannenbaum Design Group today and let’s start planning your garden and dinner table today!
References:
Jacke, D., & Toensmeier, E. (2008). Edible forest gardens. Chelsea Green.
High quality and well-designed landscapes and gardens can significantly increase the value of homes in New York City. According to a study conducted by the National Association of Landscape Professionals, a well-maintained landscape can increase the value of a home by up to 15%. This equates to an average increase of $23,000 in value for a home in New York City.
Additionally, a well-designed landscape can also increase the return on investment for homeowners. Landscaping can have a return on investment of up to 200%, making it a smart investment for homeowners looking to increase the value of their property.
If you have been thinking about making landscape improvements to your backyard, front yard, rooftop or terrace – you won’t just be improving your quality of life, but the value of your asset as well. Well-designed landscapes and gardens are proven to significantly increase the value of homes in New York.
Colorado
Beautiful landscapes and gardens can also significantly increase the value of homes in Colorado. According to a study by the National Association of Realtors, a well-maintained landscape designed by a Landscape Architect increased the value of a homes sold by an average of 12%. This equates to an average increase of $20,400 in value for properties across Colorado.
Additionally, landscaping can also increase the return on investment for homeowners. The return on investment for landscaping can be up to 200% of the capital invested in the improvements, depending on the type of improvements made and the overall value of the property.
Without question, well designed landscapes and gardens can significantly increase the value of homes in Colorado, with an average increase of $20,400. There is significant value in a high-quality landscape design.
Poor Quality Landscapes
The value spread of a high-quality landscape design vs a poor one is quite significant. Studies put into perspective the impact poorly designed outdoor spaces and curb appeal can have in a home sale. A study by Trees.com shows property values can decrease by up to 30% due to poor landscaping alone. The website surveyed 1,250 real estate professionals for its study.
Contact us to get a quote and start building value and enjoyment into your home and today!
Over the last couple years, Tannenbaum Design Group has been working with Life After Life as they reinvent the cemetery industry for the benefit of people and nature.
Life After Life(LAL) empowers deathcare as a way of bringing new life to distressed communities. LAL is a new model of regenerative development for the future of people and the planet. LAL takes difficult-to-reuse, abandoned properties and transforms them into public park amenities. These parks are supported in perpetuity through conservation easements, public incentives, sustainable celebrations-of-life, and peripheral land development, in order to preserve the public amenities and historic legacy of communities for generations to come.
Support:
LAL parks support underserved communities and remediate pollution, providing them significant physical and mental health benefits.
Protect:
LAL parks protect biodiversity, create more resilient communities, and combat climate change.
Replace:
LAL parks replace defunct property, bringing new life into distressed communities, while offering a sustainable alternative to the notoriously toxic and unaffordable options available for end-of-life care today.
As a nonprofit organization, Life After Life Foundation is working to change the perspectives around end-of-life and the motivations for planning ahead on their head. The fact of the matter is, only 30% of Americans have any plans at all for how they would like their body to be treated in the end. This has perpetuated a very destructive and exorbitantly expensive funeral industry to continue.
Reflected in their Motto, ‘One Last Good Deed’. – Life After Lifeoffers the customer the priceless value that a loved-one’s loss, can be a part of something bigger. They provide the opportunity for a person’s last choice to contribute to healing the planet – leaving things better than they came. Additionally, they hope to bring people together through placemaking, regenerative development and community building activities pre-time-of-need, something completely lacking in the traditional funeral and cemetery industry.
Through the acquisition and transition of abandoned property into a public good, LAL brings new life to distressed communities. Many of our lowest income urban communities suffer from a preponderance of polluted brownfields and a scarcity of greenspace. These brownfields often lie abandoned because the market incentives to remediate them are too low for conventional development. While the public sector may lack the finances to remediate them and build the public amenities that the community and environment needs, Life After Life is able to transition the dilapidated land into healthy and beautiful regenerative development memorial parks.
Community Benefits
Crime Reduction:
The greening of vacant urban land has been shown to reduce crime. Domestic violence in particular has been found to be 25% less prevalent in nature rich housing developments. Cleaning and greening vacant lots has led to a 9% reduction in gun assaults. In Baltimore, MD, 10% more tree canopy was found to reduce crime by 12%.
Education:
Studies show that outdoor learning delivers many benefits — reducing stress, improving moods, boosting concentration, and increasing a child’s engagement at school. Simply having more tree cover in a neighborhood can account for as much as 13% of variance in student outcomes. Exposure to nature provides the opportunity to teach the natural sciences hands-on, builds empathy for nature and an interest in STEM and regenerative development.
Physical Health:
Hospitals with a view of nature recover more quickly and require less painkillers than those without. Tree leaves absorb 95% of all ultraviolet radiation and 75,000 tons of harmful air pollutants annually. Parks induce exercise in communities, particularly for lower income populations. Nearly 80% of Americans report using local recreation services such as parks.
Mental Health:
People who have spent at least two recreational hours in nature during the previous week report significantly greater health and well-being. Low levels of green space exposure during childhood increase the risk of developing mental illness by 55% higher than for those who grow up with abundant green space. Women living in the highest percentile of green space around their home have a 12% lower mortality rate than women living in the lowest percentile. Short term memory is improved by 20% from walking in nature.
Microclimate:
Neighborhoods in a highly-developed city can experience temperatures 20°F hotter than rural areas. Extreme urban heat is a public health threat. It amplifies air pollution, increases energy consumption, and can cause serious harm to those working outside or without air conditioning. Parks and trees can decrease temperatures up to 45°F, providing cool and safe spaces for residents.
Biodiversity:
Extreme biodiversity loss looms in our near future. Consequently, one million species are now in threat of extinction. The average abundance of native species in most major land-based habitats has fallen by at least 20%, mostly since 1900. More than 40% of amphibian species, 33% of reef-forming corals, and more than a third of all marine mammals are threatened. Insect populations have declined by 75% over 3 decades. Three-quarters of all land environments and about 66% of the marine environment have been significantly altered by human actions. The creation of urban parks allows for the protection of some of our most vulnerable species.
Economic Opportunity:
City parks strengthen local economies and create job opportunities. Parks attract residents and businesses, increase revenue for cities, spur private investment, and increase job opportunities. In Denver, $1.2 million in federal park grants resulted in over $2.5 billion in local public and private investments. Riverwalk Park in San Antonio, created for $425,000, is now lined with outdoor cafes, shops, bars, art galleries, and hotels, and has overtaken the Alamo as the most popular attraction for the city’s $3.5-billion tourism industry. Retail revenues generally are found to be 30 percent higher in districts with trees.
Why Now?
Biodiversity Crisis:
Rising temperatures and rampant habitat destruction threaten species today at unprecedented levels. Evidently, 18 million acres of forest are lost every year. More than 600 species are estimated to start going extinct every century – increasing the need for regenerative development.
Soil Crisis:
According to the FAO, one third of all the world’s soil is now degraded from unsustainable agriculture practices. Soil is a finite resource, meaning its loss and degradation is not recoverable within a human lifespan.
Pollution Mitigation:
There are likely over half a million ‘brownfields’ in the U.S. alone. Conventional brownfield remediation, or the act of removing debris from a site and moving it to a landfill, is ineffective and inefficient. The nature-based solutions of phytoremediation and bioremediation remove these harmful pollutants from the soil and water with permanence.
Mental and Physical Health:
Nearly one in five U.S. adults live with a mental illness today. 7.74% of adults in America reported having a substance use disorder in the past year. In the last 20 years, the prevalence of obesity increased by approximately 40% and severe obesity almost doubled. A growing body of epidemiological evidence indicates that greater exposure to natural environments is associated with better health and well-being in urbanized societies. Living in greener urban areas is associated with lower probabilities of cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, asthma hospitalization, mental distress, and ultimately mortality, among adults; and lower risks of obesity and myopia in children. Greater quantities of neighborhood nature are associated with better self-reported health, and subjective well-being in adults, and improved birth outcomes, and cognitive development, in children.
* * *
Your membership with Life After Life Foundation means no less than 30 new square feet of habitat gets built and maintained for generations to enjoy.
Don’t wait to make a good plan. Join an event filled community, immortalize your history, and rest easy knowing you have a beautiful final resting place waiting for you, whenever your time is up.
see how your redesigning you outdoor space as a native pollinator garden can play a critical role in the fight for biodiversity in out most endangered urban habitats.READ MORE
“Like extracting bread from air.” In 1908, Fritz Haber’s invention of synthesized fertilizer revolutionized the agriculture industry. Through a process of extracting ammonia for fertilizer use from the air, annual global crop yields doubled overnight. His invention is credited with our ability today to feed billions of people. But new problems are catching up to us.
Here in the United States, we are extremely reliant on international imports to meet our produce needs. Coupled with the challenges of affordability and accessibility of labor, much of the country is also incapable of producing outside for the colder half of the year. Specifically, as of 2020, 53% of all the fresh fruit and 32% of all the fresh vegetables consumed in this country are imported.[i] Comparatively, increasingly unpredictable weather patterns are only making the challenges of conventional domestic farming more difficult. Globally, we are still struggling to meet demand for produce. In fact, a 2015 World Health Organization study found that only 36% of the global population has adequate availability of fruits and vegetables to meet minimum nutrition targets.[ii]
Controlled Environment Agriculture
Fortunately, a new wave of technology categorized as controlled environment agriculture (CEA) has the potential to revolutionize America’s food production system once again and help alleviate the greater global deficit of high quality, affordable produce. CEA is proven to increase yields per acre by a magnitude of over 10 times that of conventional agriculture through curation of year-round, ideal conditions and symbiotic micro-ecosystems.[iii] Conventionally, these facilities use hydroponic, aeroponic and aquaponic systems to grow vegetables without soil. This technology allows growers to use exponentially less water and fertilizer than conventional field agriculture. With new innovations in digital monitoring, robotic harvesting, and automated sorting and packaging, the challenges of finding labor are also alleviated. Equally important, CEA avoids the externalities of environmental degradation, systemic in conventional agriculture.
Through CEA we are able to produce higher quality crops without damaging the ecosystem. The controlled environment facilitates the elimination of toxic chemicals in exchange for biological pesticides (predators for parasites). Additionally, as facilities move closer to market in response to demand for local produce and rising shipping prices, breeding programs are able to pivot away from a focus on shelf life (for long-haul shipping) towards flavor, texture, and nutritional value. Changes in consumer demand for healthier local food is creating growing demand for CEA and ultimately opportunities for investment in the asset class.
Overview
Over the last century, conventional industrial farming has had catastrophic effects on the environment. Chemical pesticide use has decimated insect pollinator populations. Monoculture farming, erosion from tilling, herbicides, and fungicides have polluted, depleted, and sterilized our soils. Excessive fertilizing has polluted our water. It is not an exaggeration to say that the choices we make today will have cascading effects for centuries. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 33% of the world’s soil is moderately to highly degraded through erosion, salinization, compaction, acidification, chemical pollution and nutrient depletion.
These degradations hamper the soils’ ecological functionality affecting its food production capabilities.[iv] Insect populations have also declined by 75% over the past three decades, largely due to agricultural practices, hampering natural breeding and fruiting processes.[v] The cataclysmic loss of biodiversity is reaching a breaking point that will not be easy to reverse. Therefore, it is critical that we reinvent the way in which we produce our food. Controlled environmental agriculture addresses all of these environmental concerns by creating a closed loop system.
Structure
CEA can be classified into three main structures: high tunnels, greenhouses and plant factories. Each has their own benefits and limitations.
High Tunnels are the least expensive and most common solution in the market today. At as low as $3 per square foot in construction cost, they require very little capital to get started. While they are a great improvement over conventional agriculture, they have a short life span, are very susceptible to environmental damages, are less light and heat efficient, and are uninsurable.
Greenhouses average $35 per square foot at commercial scale and are the most energy efficient form of CEA.
Indoor Plant Factories — typically what people think of when they think of vertical farming — are highly variable in price (generally between $100 and $200 per square foot for new construction), but can essentially be established in any reclaimed building or container. They are very high in climate control efficiency and yields per acre possible (by growing vertically) but are more limited in what crops they can grow efficiently. (Some crops demand more light than the LEDs can provide.) Plant factories also require extreme electricity consumption. For example, lettuce crops grown by CEA consume upwards of 350kWh per square foot per year compared to a typical greenhouse’s 25kWh per square foot.
Choosing the Right Asset Type
The costliest aspect of running any CEA facility is electricity consumption. Not accounting for transportation or increased quality’s value proposition, electricity consumption is the biggest barrier today to achieving production cost parity with conventional agriculture. The key to understanding which structure type is optimal for a given location is through understanding the supplemental lighting efficiency, the cost of electricity, and local conditions. Consider this: In New York state, at current electricity prices, even if LED technology was perfected to translate 100% of input energy to light, a greenhouse’s use of the sun and supplemental light, instead of 100% artificial lighting, is still more efficient than the benefits of a plant factory’s more insulative qualities.
For this reason, choosing the right asset type to invest in for a given location is critical. Are you near the Arctic Circle where natural sunlight is very limited for half the year and temperature lows are extreme? Then a plant factory is likely the correct option. Are you in a generally mild climate state with high electricity costs? Then a greenhouse may be right for you.
ESG considerations
CEA is a better impact solution than many other popular alternatives. It is often carbon negative. It requires limited use of rare earth metal materials whose mining undermines the true environmental values of many energy oriented ESGs. CEA very poignantly addresses the problems of biodiversity and habitat loss. Additionally, it decreases agricultural water usage by over 95% and fertilizer usage by 60%. It dramatically reduces the waste of shipping. And socially, it has the potential to solve global food crises.
Opportunity
As of today, investment in CEA has reached just over $2 billion across North America and Europe. The compound annual growth rate for the North American vegetable greenhouse market since 2007 is greater than 20%. In a $20 billion market, crops from CEA facilities only account for 1.3% of the annual produce consumed in the US. With total food demand expected to increase between 59% to 98% by 2050, CEA’s growth potential is exponential.[vi] Moreover, this does not even account for the opportunity of increased produce demand facilitated by improved accessibility; research shows an increase of up to 32% in produce consumption for each additional supermarket in a census tract.[vii]
The barrier for some, and therefore the opportunity, is that these facilities require high upfront costs. In addition to the structures themselves, the intricate hydroponic irrigation systems, robotic equipment and sensory equipment can carry a large price tag. As a plethora of start-up companies race to compete and establish market dominance, they are hungry for capital. As such, many forego ownership of their facilities, instead focusing on their core expertise and leveraging capital towards opening more facilities.
Investing
Several developers and investors are capitalizing on this opportunity in a number of ways. The most common is a sale-leaseback. As examples: Equilibrium Capital acquired and leased two greenhouse facilities to indoor agriculture company Revel Green for $11.3 million and plans to finance at least three more greenhouse facilities. Another firm, Green Acreage provides sale-leaseback and construction financing to companies operating in the cannabis industry. Green Acreage invested $77.3 million with Acreage Holdings that entered into long-term, triple-net lease agreements with Green Acreage for properties in California. Other players in the market executing similar strategies include Power REIT, which owns six CEA properties in southern Colorado and Maine with a total of approximately 131,000 square feet of greenhouse and processing space; and Innovative Industrial Properties who focuses on the acquisition, disposition, construction, development and management of CEA facilities across the country.
To better understand the lucrativeness of the opportunity, Innovative Industrial Properties states that their typical absolute net lease terms are 10 to 20 years with base rents at 10% to 16% of total investment and 3% to 4.5% annual rent escalations. Typical deals range from $5 million to $30 million and carry security deposits and corporate guarantees. This compares quite favorably to conventional farmland sale-leasebacks that often have 5-year terms and net around 5% of the purchase price as base rent and escalate 7.5% to 12.5% every term.
Other Opportunities
Other growers have opted for mixed-use facilities where they can rent roof top greenhouse space. This allows growers to be in deep urban locations and virtually eliminate shipping expenses. For example, Gotham Greens recently purchased and built a 15,000 square foot greenhouse on a vacant Brooklyn rooftop. Others have chosen to take the concept directly to the literal market. BrightFarms has, to date, signed up eight supermarket chains around the country (including three of the largest national chains) to build these rooftop farms for about $2 million per acre. The facilities are expected generate $1 million to $1.5 million in annual revenue.
International investment continues to be an important funding source for controlled environment agriculture as countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE look to establish sustainable domestic food systems through the furtherance of the technology. Correspondingly, many CEA growers have gotten their start through partnerships with sovereign wealth funds.
The opportunity is clear; how real estate investors choose to enter the space is up for debate. Funded by $82 million from Equilibrium Capital, AppHarvest, a 3-year-old start-up, has purchased 366 acres in eastern Kentucky with the goal of leveraging economies of scale. With plans to develop a 2.76-million-square-foot greenhouse for $97 million, AppHarvest will be one of the largest greenhouses in the world, supplying much of the Eastern seaboard within one day’s drive.
Conclusion
Although CEA has existed for the past decade, technological development and botanical research have greatly reduced the risk and challenges of the business. Digital monitoring and control technologies have simplified running a controlled environment agriculture facility. Concurrently, consumer demand for high quality organics has risen dramatically, creating a bigger market.
As we stand today, the climate crisis has reached boiling point and habitat degradation has pushed biodiversity to the brink. CEA stands as a profitable, sustainable, lower-risk alternative to conventional agriculture, whose biggest challenge is simply the upfront costs of developing the facilities.
Fresh Alternative Farms:
If you are interested in starting a controlled environment agriculture facility of your own, send us a message and check out our partner organization: FreshAF
Citations
[i] Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. “FDA Strategy for the Safety of Imported Food.” U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA, www.fda.gov/food/importing-food-products-united-states/fda-strategy-safety-imported-food.
[ii] FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020: Transforming food systems for affordable healthy diets, 2020. https://www.unicef.org/reports/state-of-food-security-and-nutrition-2020
[iii] GL Barbosa, FD Gadelha, N Kublik, et al., Comparison of Land, Water, and Energy Requirements of Lettuce Grown Using Hydroponic vs. Conventional Agricultural Methods, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2015, 12(6), 6879-6891. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120606879
[iv] FAO, Polluting Our Soils Is Polluting Our Future, May 2, 2018. www.fao.org/fao-stories/article/en/c/1126974/.
[v] Euan McKirdy, New Study Suggests Insect Populations Have Declined by 75% over 3 Decades, CNN, October 20, 2017. www.cnn.com/2017/10/19/europe/insect-decline-germany/index.html.
[vi] Maarten Elferink and Florian Schierhorn, Global Demand for Food Is Rising. Can We Meet It?, Harvard Business Review, April 26, 2019. hbr.org/2016/04/global-demand-for-food-is-rising-can-we-meet-it.
Agroforestry is an agricultural methodology that optimizes production by exploiting the benefits of interspecies interactions. By deliberately combining trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals, or livestock, a grower can enhance their farm economically, ecologically, and environmentally. In juxtaposition to popular monocultural farming practices, agroforestry reestablishes the complexity of time, place, and biodiversity that plants experience in the wild. From a sustainability perspective, it can serve as a bridge between natural resource management and agriculture, in a world that is in dire need of a better relationship between the two.
Agroforestry can be divided into several categories: Riparian Vegetative Buffer Strips, Intercropping, Sivopastoral, Windbreaks, and Forest Farming. Each represents a different circumstance in which agroforestry can provide benefit, ultimately with the same symbiosis methods at their core.
Riparian Vegetative Buffer Strip Systems are the establishment of agroforestry plantings along stream and riverbanks to protect aquatic habitats and reduce nonpoint source pollution in waterways.
Intercropping Systems are the planting of widely spaced trees with conventional crop rows in between allowing for diversified farm income, the abatement of soil erosion, mitigation of nutrient loading, and the protection of watersheds.
Silvopastoral Systems are the combination of trees and livestock as a means of maximizing the land for economic, wildlife habitat, fire protection, and forest management benefits.
Windbreak Systems are the simple and more commonly seen practices of today. Windbreaks are plantings around the perimeter of a field used to protect and enhance the production of crops and animals while creating environmentally more stable microclimates.
Forest Farming is the development of microenvironments resembling natural forest stands that look to mimic nature throughout a farm. Forest Farming develops suitable environments for growing specialty crops within its shaded settings.
Benefits:
Agroforestry offers a wide variety of both localized and macro benefits for the farm and the greater landscape. On a macro level, Agroforestry practices can increase productivity during successional changes, decrease weed competition, increase internal regulation, increase biological regulation of insect pest, increase solar radiation usage efficiency, increase soil organic matter, increase biodiversity, decrease agriculturally derived contaminants in riparian zones, decrease wind and water erosion, increase the uptake and fixation of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and increase the retention of nutrients in soils.
Wind:
For the farmer, Agroforestry offers a variety of crop production benefits. Foremost are the benefits of wind damage protection. The creation of woody corridors traps windborne particles and slows windspeeds across sites. Small seeded, shallow sown, and newly emergent crops are particularly susceptible to wind and sandblast damage. Additionally, orchard fruit crops are often compromised from wind as well – which can cause the desiccation of petals and pollen loss as well as fruit drop, bruising, and scaring. Further, research indicates that livestock also benefit from the wind protection, with studies indicating that feed needs are decreased by up to 20% by offsetting the cold wind temperatures. Similar studies indicate benefits to livestock such as decreased newborn losses, increased cattle weight gain, and increased milk production as well.
Erosion:
Agroforestry offers erosion mitigation benefits as well in the form of wind and water erosion protection. It is estimated that conventional monocultural farming practices can result in the loss of five tons of soil per year per acre. A problem that agroforestry practices greatly eliminate. By retaining soil organic matter, farmers can greatly reduce or even eliminate their need for commercial fertilizer.
Nutrients:
When using commercial fertilizers, Agroforestry practices can greatly resolve the problems of nutrient runoff. Riparian Vegetative Buffer Strips were found to greatly decrease negative externalities from farms, in particular. Forested Vegetative Buffer Strips 90 to 150 feet wide were found to reduce ground water nitrogen content by 68% to 100% and surface water runoff nitrogen by 78% to 98%. Further, Forested Vegetative Buffer Strips are able to reduce phosphorous concentrations in surface water by 50% to 85%. This runoff, when allowed to reach water bodies can have devastating ecological effects, causing life choking algae blooms in its extreme circumstances. Further, the preservation of soil health improves the quantity and quality of the soil microbiome. These resident bacterial and fungi are critical for making nutrients available to plants.
Water:
Agroforestry offers other water benefits as well. Locally, Agroforestry practices can increase soil porosity, reduce runoff loss, and increase soil coverage, which leads to higher water infiltration and retention in the soils. This is of particular benefit in drier climates and drought conditions for reducing soil moisture stress on crops. Further, through a process called hydraulic lift, trees with deep roots redistribute deep soil water supplies to higher strata, where other crop root zones can have access during drought.
Agroforestry practices reduce sedimentation in reservoirs as well. Conventional farming results in unnaturally high sedimentation. By mitigating this, reservoir life spans can be extended at a national savings of $200 million.
Winter:
Additionally, woody corridors have the added benefit, in winter, of increasing water availability through snow capture. This snow capture is also important as insulation preventing winter kill of more sensitive perennial crops.
Climate:
Agroforestry practices overall act as valuable climate modulators. These forested settings better moderate against extreme temperature fluctuations that can be very destructive to crops. Agroforestry farms have higher humidity, soil moisture, nighttime CO2 levels, and lower nighttime air temperatures compared to their conventional monoculture counterparts. These regulatory effects were found to increase crop productivity 10% to 25% in dry climates.
Pests:
It is estimated that 18% of all crop loss is the world is due to insect pests. As global warming progresses, this problem is likely only to get worse. Agroforestry practices can impact the pest mitigation aspects of farming in a variety of ways. Through the creation of woody habitat for birds and bats, these spaces can increase the presence of the predators that prey on insect pest in the fields. Though this won’t eliminate pests in their entirety, it helps to keep populations under control.
Additionally, these wooded spaces provide the habitat needed for beneficial insects as well such as arthropod predators and parasitoids who further suppress pest insect populations. These spaces offer stable habitats for reproduction, overwintering, and refuge free from the from perturbations of conventional farming practices. Additionally, reducing wind through farms can also significantly help beneficial insects find and consuming pests. It is estimated that the wind barriers that agroforestry practices provide can improve crop pest reduction by beneficial insects up to 40%. Lastly, Agroforestry practices reduce visibility for pests, decreasing the chances of epidemic by making pests that target a single species less prolific. Overall, these predatory species serve a critical ecological role in the farm. It is estimated that these insects provide ecosystem services worth $4.5 billion per year.
Habitat:
Agroforestry practices can play a critical role in the protection and creation of critically endangered habitats for both aquatic and terrestrial species. In sensitive aquatic areas, the forested zones shade and stabilize stream banks. This reduces erosion while improving aquatic insect habitat, raising dissolved oxygen levels, reducing denitrification, reducing evaporation, and ultimately raising fish population levels. Further, these buffers play an important role in bioremediation, breaking down and capturing chemicals that drift from the farmland, decreasing their ecological destruction effects.
Pollination:
Over 30% of the crops we cultivate for food rely on insect pollinators. These pollinators largely come as wild native bees and European honeybees. Over the last century, due largely to the chemical and habitat destruction practices of industrial farming, populations of these bees have been significantly reduced. The practices involved in conventional monocultural farms are largely incompatible with the needs of many of the 4000 species of North American bees.
Approximately 30% of our native bees are wood nesters that require trees and shrubs for nesting. About 70% create nests underground requiring undisturbed soil away from the tilling of conventional farm practices. Agroforestry is a poignant way to address the habitat needs of both species. Bumble bees for instance, were found to be twice the density in wooded habitats as compared to grassland habitats. By bringing the habitats of these species closer to the crops by better interspersing woodland, fields can experience greater pollination levels and ultimately better crop production.
The many pest reduction benefits of Agroforestry decrease the need for chemical pesticides, commonly used in conventional farming. These chemicals wreak havoc on bees through direct contact and inadvertent spray drift. With the ecological service value of these bees over $3 billion, farming faces a critical need for solutions like agroforestry that can help bring the bee species back from the brink.
Air:
Agroforestry offers significant values in regard to air quality improvement as well. In addition to reducing chemical spray drifts up to 90% through woody buffers, Agroforestry farms serve a valuable role as greenhouse gas reducers, smog reducers, particulate catchers, and odor reducers in livestock areas where this can be a major concern.
Human:
Beyond the role that Agroforestry plays productively, it also can play a valuable role for the farmer themselves and the local community. First, from a biophilia perspective, agroforestry natural mimicry creates aesthetically pleasing spaces that are psychologically inviting for people. From a real estate perspective, greenspaces are among the top 5 things people seek when choosing a place to live. Greenspaces are proven to raise property values up to 32%. This land value is not shared by spaces juxtaposed to monoculture farms. These agroforestry spaces can play a valuable social role as leisure spaces for walkers, joggers, birdwatchers, and wildlife spectators – improving the quality of life. They also can serve as grounds for hunters as a secondary value.
From a practical perspective, agroforestry systems reduce the need for building snow fences, saving the farmer capital costs. Additionally, the microclimate affects reduce utility costs for dwelling units on site. Lastly, by better holding water on site, overall usage can be decreased. These effects cumulatively, ultimately, lower overall farm expenses.
On a broader scale, agroforestry serves as a means of increasing domestic food security – enabling the production of diverse products locally. Further, research suggests that, if utilized at scale, agroforestry systems could help mitigate climate change through significant carbon sequestration. And lastly, increased forest covering in watersheds can reduce the total amount of runoff from storms and mitigate flooding risks during peak stormflows. In these many ways, agroforestry offers environmental services values that are difficult to quantify.
Value Proposition:
Though many of the different agroforestry benefits are externalities outside the direct capture of the farmer, many are still measurable as the relate to the economics of the farm. From the broad perspective the values vary greatly as the mixture and effectiveness of agroforestry can vary greatly between different crops’ symbiosis and settings. However, as a mean, agroforestry has been proven to increase overall yields on the average between 6% and 56% – overall, increasing IRR to the farmer 4% to 11%.
However, the landscape of farming is changing. Agroforestry offers several other valuable properties as well. In an increasing labor challenged industry, agroforestry offers flexibility to the farmer that monocropping does not, as all crops do not need harvesting in mass at one time. Further, Agroforestry reduces risk by offering multiple harvest timings and products for sale rather than risking a year on a single yield. This also allows many fixed costs to be spread across a variety of products rather than laying idle for long periods of time.
From a startup perspective, Agroforestry offers a means of creating revenue sooner, rather than waiting years for the first crop as is seen in a conventional orchard. Additionally, it allows for the phasing out of equipment as it depreciates and succession to other crops becomes necessary.
Lastly, from a land scarcity perspective, agroforestry offers better overall utilization of land. This is particularly valuable for islands, for example, that are running up against a delicate balance of natural resource conservation and food security.
Challenges:
Agroforestry faces a number of unique challenges to wide adoption still today. Although there is becoming an ever-vaster databank of resource for learning best practices for agroforestry, there still limited research conducted in the field. Overall, there is little graduate study emphasizing agroforestry. This stems from overall limited employment opportunities in the field and as such limited funding. Given the breadth of the field and its variability across locales, there is a need for more localized testing of the practices.
Public perception holds agroforestry back from wide adoption as well. Generally, people believe that high establishment costs and high management expertise is needed. Many seem to believe that the economic gain would be lower than traditional farming. Others are disinterested in adopting systems whose rotational length may exceed the landowner’s life expectancy. Much of this is misconception only exacerbated by the public sectors disinvolvement, assuming that landowners would be unwilling to follow the land management prescriptions necessary for developing and maintaining agroforestry systems properly.
Public Policy
Public policy overall has a way to go in catching up with the needs of agroforestry becoming the norm. Currently some states offer extensions to the conservation reserve program to compensate farmers for the differences in payments they would have received from non-agroforestry practices. This is neither across the board nor a full compensation for the externalities that agroforestry provides. Currently, agroforesters are excluded from certain programs that are based on tree planting density. Considerations are being made through regarding valuing agroforestry for its carbon sequestration value. The challenge has largely been from organized commodity groups who feel that subsidizing producers entering the market through federally funded programs would give them and “unfair advantage”.
Lastly, agroforestry faces physical challenges as well. Overall, scale and time are necessary for realizing many of the benefits of agroforestry. Additionally, there can be added expenses to undergoing the practice. Sivopastoral systems, for instance, add additional costs for fencing and risk of tree damage from the livestock. Further, in some circumstances, agroforestry practices have been found to exacerbate pest problems by protecting insect pests with alternative hosts, allowing them to rebuild populations and reinvade crop areas the next season.
Conclusion:
In 1935, the Dustbowl showed us the consequences of not having any agroforestry practices across the Midwest. In its wake, the Prairie States Forestry Program planted more than 200 million trees as shelterbelts, to reclaim the land ravaged by the Dust Bowl. To a great extent, agroforestry is a return to the old way of farming of ancient times – but this time with more information.
Agroforestry offers a solution to many of traditional farming’s biggest issues today. It can address the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis, soil depletion, air and water quality, and the struggles of smaller scale farms trying to stay in business. The evidence posits that agroforestry can sustainably increase production per unit of land area while enhancing economic, social, and environmental services. While demand for local and organic specialty crops continues to grow exponentially to support the market, the time for shift has never been better or more necessary. What we need now is a policy environment that recognizes the valuable macro externalities of agroforestry better and compensates farmers for the transition in a manner more appropriate to its true value.
Patel-Weynand, T., Bentrup, G., & Schoeneberger, M. M. (2017). Agroforestry: enhancing resiliency in U.S. agricultural landscapes under changing conditions. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. Retrieved from https://purl.fdlp.gov/GPO/gpo90991
National Agroforestry Center. (2008). Agroforestry: working trees for agriculture. (Sixth edition, 2008.). Lincoln, NE: National Agroforestry Center, USDA. Retrieved from https://purl.fdlp.gov/GPO/FDLP639
Mekonnen, M., Worku, T., Yitaferu, B., Cerdà, A., & Keesstra, S. (2021). Economics of agroforestry land use system, Upper Blue Nile Basin, northwest Ethiopia. Agroforestry Systems: An International Journal Incorporating Agroforestry Forum, 1. https://doi-org.proxy.library.cornell.edu/10.1007/s10457-021-00612-y
Doddabasawa, Chittapur, B. M., & Mahadeva Murthy, M. (2020). Economics and energy potential of traditional agroforestry systems under contrasting ecosystems in semi arid tropics. Agroforestry Systems: An International Journal Incorporating Agroforestry Forum, 94(6), 2237. https://doi-org.proxy.library.cornell.edu/10.1007/s10457-020-00545-y
Jhariya, M. K., Yadav, D. K., & Banerjee, A. (Eds.). (2020). Agroforestry and climate change: issues and challenges. (1st edition.). Oakville, ON: Apple Academic Press. Retrieved from https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429057274
Montagnini, F., Francesconi, W., & Rossi, E. (2011). Agroforestry as a tool for landscape restoration. New York: Nova Science Publishers.
Design fundamentally has two elements – Form and Function. Function is the tangible aspects. What is it? What can I do with it? It’s easy to compare apples to oranges, see what is demanded across a population, and then ultimately put a price tag on what people are willing to pay for it. A deck for a deck, a shade structure for a shade structure, etc… Form, however, is much more intangible. It’s a subjective feeling about the creation. Is it beautiful? How do I feel in it? When a Landscape Designer puts a price on their work, they are putting a valuation on their own time and projecting that out as a fixed bid estimate of their total expected time expenditure. But how do we account for the value of the form, not just the function? For that, we look to secondhand sales to find out.
In 1999, a study conducted by Clemson University looked to quantify the effect of different quality landscaping improvements on the ultimate home sale price. They studied the effect that different properties in a wide variety of locations and conditions sold for using landscape quality as the variable. Consequently, what they found was that with all other variables accounted for, an excellently landscaped property could fetch up to 14 to 17% more at sale then one with landscaping rated as poor. In Denver today, that’s equivalent to $70,000 more for the average home!
Turn those drive-bys into walk-throughs, get more bids, and sell for more.
There is a cost to the investment of labor and materials to make the jump from poor to excellent, but the benefits will still far outweigh the costs. Rarely do our residential landscaping projects in Denver cost even 10% of the value of the home. Numbers crunched, that’s up to a $29,000 instant profit with the sale of your average Denver home.
When looking at your outdoor spaces don’t be afraid of the price tag. The money is being invested as equity into the home with a buffer of profit to dream big and create a space you will love. Regardless, he best way to maximize the value of landscape designing is to plan ahead. Significantly, moving into a new place is the perfect time to start planning your outdoor spaces. Undoubtedly, a more established landscape is worth more to the property and you get to thoroughly enjoy it while you live there.
Outdoor lighting, good yard maintenance, and well-placed trees will always pay for themselves in the end. Designing for varietal leisure spaces, noise reduction, visual barriers, creating a cohesive aesthetic with the architecture, crafting a clean outdoor look that makes the house feel cared for – these are some of the more subtle design challenges that people will subconsciously pay top dollar for.
Sustainable Design
None of this, however, accounts for the added benefit energy and water savings that a sustainably designed plan provides for the home. Not only do you create a curb appeal that makes you proud of where you live and an outdoor space that makes your home feel bigger and more versatile, but everyday utility and maintenance costs can be drastically reduced ultimately paying for the improvements themselves.
Tannenbaum Design Group, for these reasons, is proud to announce a new collaboration with GreenSpot Real Estate. As a landscape designer, we are now offering FREE customized designs with any Buyers or Sellers Agency Listing agreement with the purchase or sale of any home. We want to reinvent the way the home sale industry works by adding more value back into your homes than is paid in the commission. As a seller you profit! As a buyer you get to buy a house you like and turn it into a home you love, for free! What is your sister’s college roommate’s broker friend giving you for the cost of that commission? If you do the math, it makes no sense to go anywhere else.
Obviously as designers of green roofs, we are very happy about the Green Roof Initiative being passed this week. But more so, the environmental and energy efficiency benefits of green roofs make for a no-brainer. For those who do not know, the Green Roof Initiative (Ordinance 300) mandates, “every building, building addition, and any roof replacement of a building, with a gross floor area of 25,000 square feet or greater, constructed after January 1, 2018, shall include a green roof or combination of green roof and solar energy collection.” Specifically, the total coverage of rooftop requirements increases 10 percent every 50,000 square feet. This eventually caps at buildings of 200,000 square feet or more with 60 percent of the roof requiring coverage by gardens or solar panels.
Benefits
So, let’s discuss the benefits of green roofs, first, from an environmental perspective. Green roofs provide air quality benefits to the city by filtering particulates from the air in the same manner all green space does. They help to mitigate the effects of urbanization on water quality, often dramatically. Green roofs can do this by filtering, absorbing and retaining rainfall. And ultimately, from a nonhuman-centric mindset, the green roofs restore biodiversity to the urban environment. This is done by returning green space habitats to the local ecosystem.
Economic Impacts
So now let’s discuss the benefits from an economic perspective. Denver’s status, noted in a 2014 study by Climate Central, found the city has the third-greatest urban heat island effect of any American city. An effect partially produced by the radiating of heat off rooftops and pavements. The only American cities that ranked higher are Las Vegas, Nevada and Albuquerque, New Mexico. (The urban heat island effect is the raising of the temperature in the urban environment in comparison to the surrounding areas).
Impacts on Energy Consumption
In the summers, by implementing green roofs on the macro level, we can significantly reduce the overall heat index and our energy consumption used to cool buildings. Urban heat islands are also affected by the reflection of the sun’s rays off the sides of buildings, particularly glass buildings. The effect can be so intense that it can actually scorch trees and grass. A problem ultimately, solvable with more use of green walls. But we’ll leave that initiative for another day, as we wait for green wall innovation to catch up and make more economic sense.
On the micro, per building level, green roofs also work to insulate structures. They’re able to do so by reducing the amount of heat entering a structure in the summers. They can then hold on to artificial heat from the inside in the winters. In addition, the green roof protects the top of the structure from hail damage and wear from the intensity of the sun. This ultimately reduces repair and maintenance costs of the roof when compared to a standard roof. From an energy perspective alone, green roofs have been found to provide a return on investment. Usually within five or six years in many cases.
And finally, from a social and psychological level, green roofs and green spaces in general, provide a mental health benefit. This is called Biophillia. Those who get to enjoy the new view of nature have been shown to experience therapeutic benefits.
Conclusion
A green roof has a vast range of functional opportunity as well though. Green roofs can be made into community gardens, social spaces, recreational areas, and even meeting spaces in an outdoor setting. The initiative doesn’t have to be looked at solely as a dysfunctional space at higher cost. But rather an opportunity, with the required addition of the structural integrity, to turn the roof into a usable space.
Unlike many environmental initiatives, this benefit doesn’t come from taxes at all. This is because the cost is up to the building owner who, in the end, is saved money by energy savings. The only people who don’t benefit from this proposal are large scale developers who simply want to build as much, as quickly, and as cheaply as possible to sell. That’s a mindset that hardly represents the best interest of the people of Denver, the ultimate consumer.
Houston Strong, a New Detroit, and the Future of Bayou City’s Urban Planning
Background
In late 1950’s, with the decline of the American automobile giants, began the economic and population decline of Detroit. Between 2000 and 2010 alone, forty-eight percent of the manufacturing jobs in the state of Michigan were lost. For reference, in 1950, there were about 296,000 manufacturing jobs in Detroit. Today, there are less than 27,000 manufacturing jobs. In 1950, the city of Detroit was counted as a population of 1.8 million making it the 5th largest city in America. Today, almost 70 years later, there are 700,000 residents.
Detroit was the first modern major American city to experience such a massive exodus out of the city. As people left, property values fell apart and the city became broke. All over the inner city, properties were abandoned and fell into neglected decay. The dense urban areas became a wasteland of dangerous crumbling infrastructure. In its wake, as these structures were demolished, a city with vast plots of uninhabited space was left.
A Reinvention of Urban Planning
All this may sound tragic, but on the other side of the coin was an opportunity – an opportunity for a large major American metropolis to reinvent itself from the industrial era urban design of American cities into a new postmodern evolution. An opportunity for a city to learn from all of the mistakes of the last centuries and implement all the environmental, technological, and sociological understandings we have today on a redesigned American city and a new perspective on urban planning.
As we are beginning to see with the resurgence of the Detroit economy, the city is using the opportunity to embrace sustainability and environmentalism in its movement towards a better future. From cars to bicycles and public transportation, from imported agriculture to vast communal urban farms, from infinite planes of impermeable concrete to a network of green spaces – the infrastructure revolution continues.
A New Opportunity
I mention all this today, because in the wake of the most catastrophic flooding in American history, Houston now has an opportunity. Clearly, a city that floods every single year from non-tropical storms was not going to make it through a category 4 hurricane unscathed. For decades in the field, we have known and discussed the recklessness of building in the flood plains, in any city. We’ve known the macro effects of covering a virtually pancake flat city. Specifically, one that covers a whopping 627 square miles, in 40% impervious surface. Houston was once prairie lands with large plots of open space which slowed and absorbed storm water runoffs. That is the profile of the city for which the city’s archaic bayou drainage infrastructure was actually prepared for. Not what it has become.
Conclusion
The choices of the past are what they are. Undoubtedly, now is the time to reevaluate what needs to be done or this will happen again. We have vast plots of urban land that have been simultaneously destroyed and will likely be rebuilt, but the truth is that majorities of them should not be. That is not to say Harvey, a one in 500 years storm should be the indicator, but rather use the last 10+ years of regular flooding to indicate the unsustainable developments. Areas that have been flooding every other year should not be rebuilt and should become public green space – an environmentally healing, psychologically beneficial, and economically stimulating public good. There needs to be an understanding that this will get worse before it gets better because it will take years to update the drainage infrastructure needed to get Houston through the next storms.
Houston, throughout the storm, brought pride to people across the world as they watched acts of heroism and humanity. Today, Houston can make the choice to be the pride of the nation with a city that uses a disaster to reinvent itself into a new sustainable city. The opportunity to learn from our fellow Michiganders is there, it’s our choice to take it.
The term “xeriscaping” defines the process of designing landscapes for water-efficiency. The term was first coined in Colorado in 1981, but has existed throughout cultures for many centuries. Xeriscaping is achieved through the practice of designing with 5 basic principles:
Minimization of high water demanding ground covers, i.e. lawn areas (using turf only when it provides function)
Efficient irrigation techniques
Protection and improvement of planting soils
Suitable plant species selection for the specific environment (natives and naturalized species)
Continual maintenance to reduce water requirements over time
Although the term was first used here, the concept has been implemented throughout the world. Historically Iberians, (i.e. modern day Spain and Portugal) before modern irrigation techniques were very innovative in this field, cultivating fame for their agricultural innovations in dry climates. (As a nifty side fact, this agricultural skill set is the reason the small nation of Bermuda has such vibrant Portuguese subculture today, as they immigrated thousands of Portuguese farmers during the American revolution because they feared an American embargo and needed help becoming agricultural self sufficient.)
Upon arriving in these countries it is clear that there is an embracement of the demands of the environment. There is an acceptance of the existing climate and an adaptation to the natural environment is made rather than fighting the elements at high expense. From this acceptance arises a unique aesthetic that we here can learn from as we move towards sustainable design as a country. A way of rethinking not just our landscape choices but our use of art, hardscape and architecture to match the existing environment rather than battling the natural setting.
Permaculture
Permaculture, as it applies to the landscape, is an attempt to mimic symbiotic relationships found in nature in the practice of agriculture, in order to create self-sufficiency and sustainability. America remains one of the highest consumers of energy, largest producers of waste, and most excessive consumers of artificial fertilizers.
In Iberia, as the colonial empires fell apart, the Spanish, and more extremely the Portuguese, became very poor. Much like many countries that have gone through financial hardships, land became abandoned throughout the major cities, currencies fell apart, and families began to need a means to lower expenses. Through this combination of events, these cultures reverted to the historic practice of self sufficiency in micro farms. All throughout these cities today you will find brilliant little farms using found materials to grow crops in abandoned lots. Because these are personal farms, unlike American mega farms, they lack major irrigation, industrial fertilizers, and monoculture production. Instead, they mix crops and use the symbiotic relationships of the plants to sustain each other, have crop productions all season long, and keep water requirements lower.
In the United States, this has already become a major planning innovation in Detroit as it begins to recover from economic hardship. Entire city blocks have begun to transform into functioning urban farms. Even in areas that may not have the economic hardships, we can still see the value in the environmental sustainability these practices hold.
By reducing the need to transport crops over great distances we can reduce the environmental destruction of the energy usage, but it is more than that. When designed with aesthetic intention, we can turn what would be a landscape that just consumes time, money and water into beautiful, consumable resources that actually save you the owner money at the grocery store.
