🔊Partnering for Agroforestry, Part I

Before you begin an agroforestry project, ask yourself one question: “Who are my partners?”

Our new Partnering for Agroforestry series highlights nine examples of partnerships that have made agroforestry possible. Our latest podcast episode features the voices from three of these projects: All Seasons Farm, Organic Compound, and Silverwood Park. 

“With agroforestry, there’s just an infinite amount of ways people can partner on land to make a profit and work together. Especially the people that have the land access like us, it feels like part of my responsibility and my duty to open that up and get it to its full potential.”

 

“So one thing that makes our partnership successful is that we had also done the work to build a strong community…that helped support us in getting the trees planted, and all throughout this journey.”

 

“I think those are two key elements that hold a lot of people back: the startup capital or the operating loans… and then having land.”

-Carly & Wil Crombie, Organic Compound

“We now have a lot of seasoned growers who are doing a good job. We lease from the county and then we sublease to growers. So the growers function independently under our umbrella. We have about 15 grower partners.”

 

“It’s a big job. And so we partnered to get this job done and to showcase the agroforestry.”

-Katie Whitten, Silverwood Park Manager 

 “You’re not going to have a landowner just on their own spend five to ten thousand dollars putting all these trees and tubes out there. That’s where the partners come in for cost sharing.”

“We’re just trying to find people willing to try things on the landscape. There’s a lot of partners out there. We’re just looking for participants.”

-Bob Micheel, Monroe County Land Conservation Department