increasingly being discussed as options in more developed countries and could easily incorporate agroforestry principles (Jordan, et. al., 2007). For example, the five principles of sustainable food and agriculture defined by the FAO (2018) include: (a) increase productivity, employment, and value addition in food systems, (b) protect and enhance natural resources, (c) improve livelihoods and foster inclusive economic growth, (d) enhance the resilience of people, communities, and ecosystems, and (e) adapt governance to the new challenges.
About four decades ago, agroforestry was “discovered” by the international scientific community as a practice in search of a science (Steppler, 1987). Since that time, an increasingly extensive research base has been developing to help understand, improve, and apply indigenous agroforestry practices in developing nations of the world (Nair, 1996; Garrity et al., 2010; van Noordwijk et al., 2019). Around the same time, academics started asking how such practices might be applied in more developed countries (e.g., Campbell et al., 1991; Gold & Hanover, 1987; Lassoie, Teel, & Davies, 1991). However, agroforestry practices were not new in the temperate context either. Native Americans, across what is now the United States and Canada, have been practicing indigenous forms of what could be termed landscape‐scale agroforestry for millennia (Rossier & Lake, 2014). In the early decades of the 20th century, agroforestry plantings were done in the United States and Canada in the form of windbreaks and shelter belts as a response to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. In the temperate zone, science‐based agroforestry biophysical and socioeconomic research and practice gained attention in the1980s and has strongly increased in the past 40 yr. Interest in domestic agroforestry has continued to grow, particularly as the dual needs for enhanced environmental protection and new economic opportunity have increased in importance (Brown, Miller, Ordonez, & Baylis, 2018; Garrett et al., 1994; Jose, 2009; Jose, Gold, & Garrett, 2018). The realization that agroforestry systems are well suited for diversifying farm income while providing environmental services and ecosystem benefits has increased receptivity on the part of landowners (Rois‐Díaz et al., 2018) Agroforestry systems offer great promise for the production of biomass for biofuel, specialty and organic crops, pasture‐based dairy and beef, among others. Agroforestry also offers proven strategies for carbon sequestration, soil enrichment, biodiversity conservation, and air and water quality improvement not only for the landowners or farmers but for society at large (Dollinger & Jose, 2018; Holzmueller & Jose, 2012; Scherr & McNeely, 2007, 2008; Udawatta & Jose, 2012).
In this chapter, we demonstrate the linkages among emerging integrated management systems for agriculture and forestry and indicate possible roles that agroforestry could play in the continuing development of these new land use strategies. Opportunities for the development of domestic agroforestry practices are identified and progress toward meeting them highlighted. Possible approaches to overcoming constraints limiting the development of agroforestry in the United States are suggested. It is our purpose to provide a framework for the chapters that follow and to stimulate creative thinking and proactive behavior by scientists and management professionals responsible for developing and implementing new land use management strategies that are environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable.
Land use Management Systems in North America
Here we provide thoughts on new management systems that are emerging to help account for the complex demands currently being placed on the nation’s rural lands. Specifically, agricultural and forestry land use practices are examined relative to certain biophysical and socioeconomic principles basic to natural resources management. We also provide a historical perspective for the evolution of forest management and agricultural production practices and for the development of domestic agroforestry activities.
Basic Principles Influencing Management Systems
Management can be considered as the planned intervention into natural processes to assure predictable outcomes of benefit to the health and welfare of humans. Hence, sociological factors often become the driving principles determining many land use decisions. For example, a stewardship ethic that places long‐term social good above short‐term personal gain can move people to spend time, effort, and money assuring the ecological integrity of land they currently own. In contrast, a pioneer ethic emphasizing the immediate needs of the individual can promote destructive activities that negatively impact future generations (Nash, 1982). This anthropocentric focus for management has been challenged for decades (Stone, 1996). Obviously, different user groups can hold very different views concerning the utilization, conservation, and preservation of our natural resources, often making the social context in which land use decisions are made highly contentious.
The social context for land use decision‐making is also subject to increasingly rapid change as the pace of social evolution quickens in response to increased knowledge and technological advancements. For example, this century has witnessed major changes associated with the transition from a rural to an urban society, shifts in ethnic and age structures, a move to an information‐based society, and periodic resurgence in the public’s interest and concern about the environment and the use of the nation’s farm and forest lands. Hence, management decisions socially acceptable in one generation may not be accepted in another (e.g., clear‐cutting old‐growth forests, eradicating predators, or indiscriminate pesticide use).
The United States is a capitalistic society, and the economic bottom line continues to drive many decisions concerning the production of food, forage, livestock, and fiber. We have been so successful in creating a higher order of socioeconomic organization through our effective harnessing of energy that subsistence living remains for only a few in North America. Agriculture and forestry are now big businesses operating in a dynamic world economy. Fortunately, there is a sound theory base supporting our understanding of the economic variables driving capitalism, such as cost/benefit ratios, supply–demand interrelationships, and marketplace dynamics. Unfortunately, much of this neoclassical theory simplifies or neglects critical issues, such as the long‐term values associated with externalities arising from sound management practices, often making it inadequate for explaining the current realities of the land use and environmental decision‐making process (Daly & Cobb, 1989; Tisdell, 1990).
Nonetheless, during the past two decades there has been increased interest in internalizing the environmental costs and benefits not necessarily reflected by our market system (Mann & Wustemann, 2008; Wang & Wolf, 2019). Payments for environmental or ecosystem services have entered the discussion of policymakers at both the federal and state levels in the United States (Mercer, Cooley, & Hamilton, 2011; Potter & Wolf, 2014). We have a voluntary market for carbon offsets in the United States and a developing market for water quality credits, both patterned after what has been considered to be a successful cap‐and‐trade system to control sulfur dioxide emissions (Börner et al., 2017; Gordon, 2007; Jack, Kousky, & Sims, 2008; Lowrance, 2007; Palma, Graves, Burgess, van der Werf, & Herzog, 2007b; Wang & Wolf, 2019).
Land use management is inherently interdisciplinary because of the multitude of interrelated factors that must be considered when deciding how best to optimize the use of land for realizing its multiple values (Ferraz‐de‐Oliveira, Azeda, & Pinto‐Correia, 2016; Savory, 1988; Stankey, 1996). The extent to which scientific knowledge is useful in such a decision‐making process depends on its ability to deepen managers’ understanding of complex systems and how to adjust them to achieve specific objectives. An interdisciplinary approach is essential to the development of such knowledge (Chubin, Porter, Rossini, & Connolly, 1986). The study of interdisciplinary land use management systems, while previously overlooked (Stankey, 1996), has become a major topic of interest in the research and development community (LaCanne & Lundgren, 2018). The “tyranny of the disciplines,” while still the norm in creating institutional obstacles to effective integration (Campbell, 1986), is no longer the only paradigm being promoted and is actively being superseded during the past decade by a shift toward increased diversification of landscapes and cropping systems (Geertsema et al., 2016; Liebman & Schulte, 2015). The theoretical base for the management of complex agroecosystems often does not meet
