The European Agroforestry innovation Network Fostering agroforestry in Europe
AFINET is a European Union funded project which overall objective of AFINET is the promotion and innovation of European Agroforestry (AF) through the development of a multi-actor interactive and innovation-driven network, based on successful sharing of practical experiences and existing research knowledge, applied to different contexts, climates and agricultural sectors. AFINET will modify AF systems design and management in order to increase the agricultural systems production and profitability to promote a sustainable land management throughout Europe. AFINET networking is based on nine Regional Innovation Networks in the nine countries where it is based where over 300 stakeholders meet every six months. AFINET first meeting aimed at asking farmers which are the main challenges to foster agroforestry in Europe. Among all, challenges could be summarized in four main topics: technical, economic, education and policy. Solutions to these challenges were discussed with all stakeholders and a provisional list of innovations was produced that has been validated in the third RAIN meeting. Innovation topics can be seen in Table 1 and the technical challenge can be grouped in several clusters: Livestock management, Lower story management, woody perennials management and horizontal innovation clusters for the technical challenge.