Unlocking agroforestry: how Danish farmers and landowners perceive trees in agriculture

Agroforestry and the presence of trees in agricultural landscapes produce a multitude of potential environmental, climate, and farm system benefits. To unlock these potentials, farmers and landowners’ perceptions of trees are important to consider. Most attempts to understand the barriers and opportunities for agroforestry experienced by European farmers have, so far, dealt with farmers as a homogenous group. This study analyses the diversity of perceptions among groups of farmers, to understand their varying capacities for and interest in agroforestry. Key differences were identified by applying farm typologies to a large questionnaire dataset on Danish farmers’ perceptions of drawbacks, benefits and multi-functional values of incorporating trees on their farms. Patterns in the data are assessed using χ2-tests of independence and correspondence analyses. The four groups of farmers compared were conventional full-time farmers, organic full-time farmers, conventional part-time farmers, and organic part-time farmers. Comparison revealed that both full- and part-time organic farmers are more likely to believe that agroforestry is a more climate- and environment-friendly way to farm than conventional full-time farmers. Conventional full-time farmers perceived barriers and costs of trees in fields to be larger than the two organic groups, and conventional part-time farmers were most inclined to find agroforestry questions irrelevant. We conclude that the potential for increasing agroforestry in Denmark might be most easily reached by targeting policies toward organic farmers.