cultivar_22_Final_EN

64 ANALYSIS AND PROSPECTIVE STUDIES CULTIVAR Issue 22 APRIL 2021 2. What is meant by agroforestry systems and how can they be classified? Agroforestry systems in mainland Portugal are areas where cork oaks, holm oaks, chestnut trees, stone pines and carob trees grow in single-species or mixed stands that are mainly associated with non-ir- rigated arable crops within long rotations and/or extensive beef cattle rearing and/or small ruminants. Depending on the type of activities practised, agro- forestry systems can be classified as: • Agrosilvicultural systems; • Silvopastoral systems; • Agrosilvopastoral sys- tems. The evolution in prices and agricultural markets in Por- tugal over recent decades has called into question the economic viability of the type of plant-based farming that has tended to be associated with agroforestry systems. For this reason, we consider these systems nowadays to be almost exclusively silvopastoral in type, in particular cork and holm oak forest systems (montado). Cork and holm oak forest systems (montado) can be classified into pasture and non-pasture systems, of which only the former is of interest to us here. As far as the silvopastoral sys- tems analysed here are con- cerned, we can also classify them as more extensive or more intensive depending on the pasture model used. The more extensive pas- ture model is based on stocking rates of 0.1 to 0.5 livestock units (LUs) per hectare and is associated with unimproved and unseeded grassland or per- manent pasture. The more intensive pasture model is based on stocking rates of over 1 LU per hectare 1 Pedro Reis et al : “Sistemas agroflorestais em Portugal Continental. Parte I: Economia e distribuição geográfica”, Revista da Sociedade de Ciências Agrárias de Portugal (SCAP), no. 37 (2), 2014 and is almost always associated with improved and seeded grassland or permanent pasture. Therefore, this article will focus on silvopastoral-type agroforestry systems with an extensive or intensive pasture model in which cork and holm oak forest systems (montado) are of particular importance. 3. Location and main characteristics of agroforestry systems To locate and characterise the agroforestry systems in question, we based our analysis on the distribu- tion of grasslands and permanent pastures (GPPs) under forestry cover in the different regions of main- land Portugal and the various types of farming and classes of Utilised Agricultural Area (UAA) in the respective hold- ings. From the data available in the 2016 Farm Structure Survey (FSS), it can be concluded that over 95% of total GPPs under forestry cover are located in the farming regions of Beira Interior, Ribatejo e Oeste, and Alentejo (797,500 ha). This figure is even more significant when improved or seeded GPPs (99%) and poor GPPs (96%) are considered separately. If broken down by NUTS III regions, around 90% of total GPPs under forestry cover in mainland Portu- gal are located in just 6 of the 23 NUTS III regions in question. Therefore, we will focus our analysis on around 635,000 hectares of GPPs under forestry cover in the NUTS III regions of Beira Baixa, Lezíria do Tejo, Alto Alentejo, Alentejo Litoral, Alentejo Central and Baixo Alentejo. The area occupied by these 6 NUTS III regions essen- tially corresponds to the Sul-Montado region iden- tified by Pedro Reis et al 1 in their article in the SCAP … nowadays [agroforestry systems are] almost exclusively silvopastoral in type, in particular cork and holm oak forest systems (montado). … the three other regions defined in this study – Norte Atlântico, Norte Transmontano and Transição – have very little importance in terms of the agroforestry systems … in mainland Portugal