Assessment of Agricultural Areas Suitable for Agroforestry in Latvia

Abstract

The role of trees on agricultural land is predicted to increase rapidly in order to achieve biodiversity, environmental, and climate goals. This study demonstrated the selection and evaluation approach and assessed the suitable agricultural land for agroforestry practices in hemiboreal Latvia, which was selected as the demonstration area by synthesizing knowledge of environmental sciences, remote sensing, and relevant legislation on land use and management. The total area of agricultural land suitable for agroforestry was estimated to be 14.1% of the total agricultural land in Latvia (351.5 kha). The selected agricultural land mainly comprised semihydromorphic soils; the dominant soil texture was loamy sand. Current dominant land use in the selected agricultural land consisted of heterogeneous agriculture and pastures; however, the selected agricultural parcels were outside intensive agricultural production for the most part—only 0.38% of the total selected agricultural land was accepted to receive state support and/or EU support to farmers under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Considering the lengthy process of implementation of new agricultural-land-management practices, as well as taking into account the ambitious timeframe for reaching biodiversity, environmental, and climate goals, we recommend reducing hindrances to the introduction of agroforestry systems. The provided selection and evaluation approach is transferable to other countries and regions by adaptation of the elaborated methodologies to available country-specific spatial information and data