Social
The development of agroforestry in the United States has social ramifications that will be realized at the individual, community, and national levels. As a sustainable land use strategy, agroforestry practices can further the land stewardship concept (Jordan, 1994; Montambault & Alavalapati, 2005; Roesch‐McNally, Arbuckle, & Tyndall, 2017; Udawatta et al., 2017; Weber, 1991) by providing assurance to landowners that they are meeting their ownership responsibilities to provide healthy ecosystems for future generations. If agroforestry proves to enhance the production capabilities of rural lands, such practices will help revitalize rural communities, which have become socially depressed because of recent economic problems (Jose et al., 2018). Farmers with limited land and immigrant populations interested in farming provide an important audience as well as a population that may be more interested in the more labor‐intensive practices common to agroforestry (Faulkner, Owooh, & Idassi, 2014). Understanding the role that agroforestry might play in modern land use systems will also help individuals appreciate that people from developing countries have experiences, insights, and knowledge potentially helpful for solving many problems currently plaguing modern societies (Coulibaly, Chiputwa, Nakelse, & Kundhlande, 2016; Jose & Dollinger, 2019). Such an appreciation for the value of human capital and indigenous (i.e., local) knowledge (Rossier & Lake, 2014) will help reduce ethnocentric and educational biases that form barriers between individuals who must work together to successfully address today’s environmental crises. Also important is the impression that the United States must make on the rest of the world with respect to its concern about the management of its own natural resources. Developing agroforestry practices and integrated agricultural and forestry land use systems will set international standards for ecologically sound management by example. Our concern about deforestation, desertification, and soil erosion in developing countries will gain more credibility once our own “ecological house” is in order.
Opportunities for Institutional Development
The continued development of a domestic focus on agroforestry offers unique opportunities for various organizations responsible for supporting the nation’s food, forage, livestock, and fiber‐producing networks. These include academic institutions, state and federal government agencies, non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) that include conservation‐oriented organizations, and the private sector. Such opportunities enhance the ability of these groups to provide support to rural communities while responding to public demand for more sustainable and environmentally benign land use practices (National Research Council, 1996; USDA, 2019). Previous experience in both developed and developing countries clearly demonstrates the need for institutional collaboration in developing effective agroforestry policies (Biggs, 1990). Domestic agroforestry has reached the point where new, interdisciplinary, and interagency approaches to integrated land use management are underway (USDA, 2019), thereby serving as a design methodology for reuniting the fields of agriculture and forestry in a common quest for sustainability.
Academic Institutions
The development of a domestic agroforestry program is especially important to the nation’s land‐grant institutions, and specifically their state land‐grant colleges of agriculture and forestry. After successfully achieving the goal of enhanced scientific rigor (USDA, 1987), these institutions are now being criticized for moving away from their original applied missions, thus becoming less directly responsive to the needs of the public (National Research Council, 1996). In spite of this trend, the development of comprehensive agroforestry programs and multiple partnerships focused on helping private rural landowners is well underway across the United States (USDA, 2015).
Land‐grant institutions are also responsible for educating future professionals. The teaching of agroforestry courses offers the opportunity to help meet the interests of students for an interdisciplinary, problem‐solving education, which is difficult to provide due to the demands for scientific rigor within discipline‐based curricula (Gold & Jose, 2012; Lassoie, 1990; Lassoie, Huxley, & Buck, 1994). More specifically, agroforestry can provide a model for teaching holistic approaches to land use management and may attract students from a wide variety of disciplines within the agricultural and natural resource sciences. Likewise, agroforestry provides an intersection between major fields of study, and reconnecting agriculture and forestry will certainly strengthen these fields as they move to develop a scientific basis for new management paradigms. In addition, new opportunities for funding and program development will arise as the importance of domestic agroforestry increases, thereby providing new areas for professional advancement by young academics.
Land‐grant institutions are emphasizing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research to deal with real‐world problems that cross disciplines. This approach also recognizes that many of the problems we face today require solutions that require an interdisciplinary and/or transdisciplinary approach (Stock & Burton, 2011). Agroforestry, with its roots as an applied science, provides ample opportunities for research across biophysical and social science disciplines to address applied problems.
Lastly, a domestic focus on agroforestry will further emphasize the importance of developing and maintaining a strong international component within the land‐grant university system (Globalizing Agricultural Science and Education Programs in America Task Force, 1997) as many of the examples of successful agroforestry activities come from projects in developing countries (Nair, 1989, 1993; Garrity et al., 2010; Pinho, Miller, & Alfaia, 2012). Hence, a comprehensive agroforestry program from the nation’s land‐grant institutions could recommit and recharge the intellectual energy necessary to address the needs of the peoples of the world, a much broader mission than originally identified for these institutions (National Research Council, 1996). Online offering of degrees and certificates is another avenue by which land‐grant institutions could offer much needed agroforestry training both nationally and globally. Such a program was initiated in 2013 at the University of Missouri, offering graduate degrees or certificates in agroforestry entirely online (Gold & Jose, 2012).
Government Agencies
State (e.g., departments of natural resources, environmental conservation, agriculture, and markets) and federal (e.g., U.S. Forest Service, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS), USDI Bureau of Land Management, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) agencies are gaining from the development of a domestic agroforestry program. The existing domestic program depends on, and promotes, interagency cooperation and effectiveness, areas always in need of improvement. Agroforestry provides a unique opportunity to foster new approaches to helping the farming and forestry communities with incentive programs, promoting needed rural development (Schoeneberger, Bentrup, & Patel‐Weynand, 2017; USDA, 2019). This is especially important to small, independent farmers and nonindustrial forest landowners. While presently there is a trend toward rapid consolidation of small farms into larger corporate structures, with large and super‐large farms controlling most of the fiber and food production in the country, there is growing recognition and appreciation for the important roles that small farms play in producing not only foodstuff but also a variety of economic, social, and environmental products and services (Schoeneberger et al., 2017). There is also a growing sector of beginning small farmers and immigrants entering rural areas interested in more diverse systems and organic options that adapt well to agroforestry management. This same population is often more open to the labor‐intensive options associated with agroforestry production practices.
A report of the USDA National