Patrick Worms

Restoring degraded landscapes with agroforestry

"Soil is dynamic. You can degrade it, but you can also restore it, and if you do it well, you can restore it at amazing speed."

Agroforestry is a regenerative farming system which produces food in and around forested areas. This approach improves soil health, restores degraded ecosystems, encourages biodiversity, develops climate resilience and creates economic opportunities for local communities.

Patrick Worms is President of the International Union for Agroforestry and Senior Science Policy Adviser at World Agroforestry. A Cambridge-educated molecular geneticist, he works at the interface between science and policy.

"Changing agricultural practices to reduce emissions from agriculture is not only possible, it's usually cheap. You can probably drive those emissions right down to zero without stopping the production of what you want."