Celebrating agroforestry achievements and ambitions

Simon Roberts: So we're on a farm here today celebrating the Woodland Trust partnership with Sainsbury's for 21 years now. Together with the Woodland Trust, Sainsbury's has planted 5.3 million trees, something we're really proud of. It's really important because everyone relies on good food. But we know the system behind producing good food is under pressure. Pressure from climate change, economic pressure, farmers are facing those pressures and so partnership for us at Sainsbury's is really important.

Darren Moorcroft: I think what's special about the partnership between Sainsbury's and the Woodland Trust is not only its longevity, but actually what it's been able to achieve in that time. 5.3 million trees is a huge achievement and those trees will go on for generations. So it's making a real difference, creating a real legacy. Not only that, it's actually shifting the way we're thinking about how we put trees onto land and onto farms.

Helen Chesshire: Trees for Your Farm is a scheme that the Woodland Trust developed over a decade ago to inspire and encourage farmers to integrate trees into their farms. Agroforestry, as it's otherwise known, is the deliberate integration of trees and shrubs into farming systems. Simple things like hedgerows and shelter belts that most farms have, but done to make sure that the farm benefits from the economic and ecological interactions of having those trees working for that farm business. It's been an incredibly successful scheme and over 450,000 trees have been planted, but more importantly, lots and lots of farmers have been inspired to think about how trees might work for their farming business.

Ellen Smith: Over the last three years, I've really noticed that there's a increasing drive for farmers to plant trees on their farms. I think this is in response to extreme weather primarily, so really hot summers combined with really wet winters. And actually trees are amazing because they essentially regulate the environment, so in those hot weather events they create shade and shelter for livestock and equally in heavy rainfall, they slow the flow of water and also those sort of spaces and pores that tree roots create within the soil horizon draw water down from the surface and make farmers more resilient.

Helen Chesshire: Agroforestry is a relatively simple land management tool and it's something that most farms have on them. It's just the way of how they think about using them and the benefits they can deliver to their business. So the scheme with Sainsbury's sort of demystified all this by giving really good one-to-one quality advice, exploring how trees can work for that particular farm business.

Ruth Cranston: Nature is the backbone of our food system. We depend on biodiversity, healthy soils and water to produce the good food that we really depend on. And working with the Woodland Trust is one of the key partnerships that enables us to build a more sustainable and resilient food system.

Gavin Hodgson: We can bring all of the learnings that we've had through the Woodland Trust partnership over the years and then the farmer partnerships, and we can merge those two things together to work on resilience within specific supply chains and specific partnerships for Sainsbury's.

Ruth Cranston: It's been brilliant to be here with Ant today on Slough Court Farm. We've walked all the way around and we can really see the benefits that this is bringing to his farming system.

Anthony Gothard: We've planted trees here in conjunction with the Woodland Trust and Sainsbury's. I do feel I'm just a custodian, and I want to leave this place in a better way than when I started. We're now predominantly dairy, so 850 cows, milking 750 all year round. The Woodland Trust have been really good with us and we've worked together and we've got a series of different options that we've put in, from woodland to silvopasture to tree alleys, to see on some places whether we can incorporate silvopasture into our young stock grazing systems to give them shelter.

Ellen Smith: One of the most important parts of this work is that we are able to work with really commercially driven farmers ranging from organic beef, conventional beef, conventional dairy, a range of sectors, horticultural farms. and it allows us to work together to have mutual benefits. I think often tree people have worked in one sector and farmers have worked in another and this has been an amazing collaboration between the two, and the Woodland Trust has actually taken a lot away in terms of learning about farming practices and making sure that the agroforestry systems deliver for both.

Jem Gladwell: It seems a very exciting opportunity to see whether you can farm as effectively and introduce more trees into the landscape. We wanted to see if we could start breaking up the slightly larger fields and offer some shade to the animals.

David Snowden: Heat stress can have a dramatic effect on production. For instance, I know dairy cows, their milk production can drop dramatically if they get over-hot. Adding trees for shade will really just make it a more productive farm.

Becky McKee: We do need to look at agroforestry being part of all our farming futures. I think it's such an integral part and part of our landscape. And as we're having more difficult climate changes, I think it's a good sort of tool to have on our farm. Because Sainsbury's and Woodland Trust are offering these incentives and grants essentially to put agroforestry in, it’s a good opportunity to take advantage of that.

Russell McKee: With a lot of change in the UK ag industry at the moment, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of negative news stories, it's nice to do something positive and this is a change that people can embrace. It could help a lot of farms through uncertain times.

Henry Andrews: I think that we have to do a better job in getting across to farmers, actually, agroforestry isn't a trade-off to farming and running a successful farm, be it arable or livestock. The Woodland Trust has been fantastic, absolutely crucial in offering advice, planting ideas and also working with people like Sainsbury's. If a farmer is considering it, there's no real downsides to it. In the five to six years I've been doing it, it's been so, so beneficial for my farming enterprise.

Ellen Smith: What makes agroforestry unique is the way that it stacks nature benefits on top of farming benefits. No more do we have to consider making space for nature at the cost of farming. It integrates the two really nicely together. And on a landscape scale, agroforestry ensures that nature is well connected. And when we think about food resilience combined with nature resilience, agroforestry really achieves both.

Darren Moorcroft: The goal for the next four years of this partnership is really to shift the dial for agroforestry. From a supply chain perspective for Sainsbury's and for us as the Woodland Trust, seeing trees on farms is a really important way in which we can support our farmers to do what they can do for nature to alleviate things like flood risk, capture carbon and do all the great things that trees can do, but also for food production.

Simon Roberts: It's great to see the work happening and at Sainsbury's we're really proud of this partnership and really committed to make sure we keep playing our part to make a real difference.

Darren Moorcroft: It's creating a movement and it's driving change which is making sure that actually on our farms they are more resilient to the future and that's a great thing for both Sainsbury's, for the Woodland Trust but actually for society as a whole.