The role of agroforestry in increasing the economic fertility of arable lands in arid regions

Abstract

The solution to the problem of agricultural producers' rational and effective use of land resources depends heavily on the economic evaluation of firms' resource potential. One of the main resources of enterprises in the production process is fixed capital or fixed production assets, of which protective forest stands are an integral part. Solving the tasks of increasing the economic fertility of arable lands in arid areas, provides a significant increase in agricultural production. In order to study this issue in more detail, a study was conducted during 2021 at the laboratory of Mathematical Modelling of the Federal Scientific Center for Agroecology, Integrated Melioration and Protective Afforestation of the Russian Academy of Sciences, located in the Volgograd region (Russia), to identify the role of protective forest plantations in increasing the economic fertility of arable land. To do this, we conducted a score assessment of its main indicators – yield and net income from the sale of wheat – for various variants of land objects with open and forested spaces within the main natural zones of the Volgograd region (Russia). The comparison showed that under all spatial-zonal scenarios, forested land has a much greater potential for improving the fertility of arable land than open land. At the same time, the benefits received from the forest reclamation of fields are many times higher than the costs of this event, which indicates the economic feasibility of measures in the region.