Developed by Land App in partnership with Shropshire Council and with input from Edd Colbert (Agroforestry Design). It is co-funded by Trees Outside Woodland (a partnership of Defra, The Tree Council, Natural England, and Shropshire Council), and in consultation with Forestry Commission, this tool is set to transform the way agroforestry is planned and implemented across the UK.
Agroforestry offers a clear solution to some of the challenges faced in farming – enhancing biodiversity, improving resilience to climate change, and maintaining (often increasing) productivity. However, knowing where to start and how to design these systems can be overwhelming. That’s where the Agroforestry Designer Toolkit comes in.
What Types of Agroforestry Can You Design?
The Agroforestry Designer Toolkit offers three primary design options:
- Linear Agroforestry: Perfect for alley cropping or linear silvopasture, this tool helps users design tree rows interspersed with crops or grazing areas.
- In-field Grid/Dispersed: Ideal for wood pasture or dispersed planting, this tool helps plan tree spacing for shade, shelter, and biodiversity.
- Traditional Orchard: Designed for those interested in creating or maintaining orchards under schemes like the Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier, with guidelines on planting densities and potential payment rates.
Each tool is tailored to help users generate practical designs that can be easily modified to meet the specific requirements of their land and government incentive programs such as the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CS).
For more detailed guidance on how these agroforestry systems can work, check out these Agroforestry Illustrations from The Tree Council.
Why Use the Agroforestry Designer Toolkit?
The toolkit was created to simplify agroforestry design, offering the following benefits:
- Automated and Tailored Initial Designs: After answering a few quick questions, the tool generates custom agroforestry designs in under 30 seconds.
- Flexibility and Ease of Use: Whether you’re looking to implement tree alleys, dispersed tree planting, or a traditional orchard, the toolkit allows you to customise your designs to suit your farm’s specific conditions.
- Grant Scheme Alignment: You can generate designs compatible with current government incentives and payment schemes, making it easier to align your projects with programs like SFI and CS. The tool can show the following:
- Planting Densities: the tool allows you to choose tree planting densities in-line with both SFI and CS grants, such as 30-50 stems per ha with SFI 24 – AGF1: Maintain very low-density in-field agroforestry on less sensitive land, or 51-130 stems per ha (SFI 24 – AGF2: Maintain low-density in-field agroforestry on less sensitive land)
- Capital Item planning; use the SFI 24 or Countryside Stewardship template with your plan to generate the expected payment rate from options, such as AF1: Plant an agroforestry woodland tree (£5.40/tree) or AF2: Plant an agroforestry fruit tree (£17.83/tree).
In addition to saving time and effort, the tool’s site-specific recommendations help ensure you get the most out of your agroforestry system – both in terms of productivity and environmental impact. You can export your design as a map or table, making it simple to share with advisors or submit as part of a funding application.
How to Use the Agroforestry Designer Toolkit
Getting started is easy. Simply load your land data into the Land App, or draw your field(s) of interest and follow the guided steps to input key information about your site and objectives. The tool will then generate your initial bespoke agroforestry design in seconds, allowing you to tweak the layout, tree species, or planting densities. For a full guide on how to use the tool, check out our help article here.
If agroforestry isn’t right for you, you might want to use our EWCO Checker Tool instead, to see if you could create woodland on your land.
Who Are the Partners Behind the Toolkit?
This tool was developed in collaboration with several key organisations committed to sustainable farming and forestry:
- Land App: Land App is a digital mapping tool, helping land owners and managers make more sustainable choices with their land. Agroforestry is a perfect option for people to explore, however, it can be a struggle to understand where to start. The Agroforestry Designer Toolkit provides that perfect springboard for conversations and iterative discussions on how a future design could look.
“Agroforestry is still seen as a niche in our food-production system, despite all the benefits we know a well-thought-out design can bring to a farm. I hope this tool helps bring agroforestry to the masses, providing a simple tool to consider agroforestry, complementing the new grants that Defra has made available”
– Dan Geerah, Director, Land App
- Shropshire Council: As one of the partners in the Trees Outside Woodland project, leading on agroforestry, Shropshire Council has been instrumental in supporting tree planting in non-woodland areas, including farms. They recognise agroforestry’s role in building climate resilience while maintaining productive farmland.
“Agroforestry has many proven benefits and we feel that it is the ideal solution to the problems of climate change and nature depletion, whilst still enabling food to be produced from the countryside.
Earlier in 2024 we decided to commission the Land App team to develop agroforestry design software as we realised that nothing like this existed and that this tool could enable farmers to make easy and informed decisions about how to plant up more trees outside woodlands on their land..”
– Nick Rowles, Trees Outside Woodlands Project Officer, Shropshire Council
- Trees Outside Woodland: The Trees Outside Woodland project, a partnership of Defra, The Tree Council, and Natural England, explores the role of non-woodland trees on farms and in other landscapes. This toolkit aligns perfectly with their mission to encourage the integration of trees into diverse environments. Across five pilot local authorities, The project has supported farmers, like James, across five pilot local authorities to access the benefits of agroforestry:
“If you take one of my fields, you put tree alleys in, I think we’ll get the same amount of crop off it, but we’ll have 650 additional trees and the produce from them too, a beetle bank under each one, lots of interconnected habitats and hedgerows all the way around. I can’t see a downside to it.”
– James Turner, Farm Manager and Trees Outside Woodland project participant
Edd Colbert (agroforestrydesign.co.uk): Edd Colbert, an expert in agroforestry design, has played a central role in shaping this tool, ensuring it meets the needs of land stewards.
“I believe this tool offers a fantastic starting point for agroforestry design and, as a freely accessible tool, gives users the chance to imagine what various agroforestry systems could do for them without spending a penny. These initial designs can then be used as a basis for conversations with funders or advisors as well as for developing funded Agroforestry Plans as part of the new government subsidies”
– Edd Colbert, Agroforestry Design
How the Toolkit Supports the Trees Outside Woodland Project
The Trees Outside Woodland project investigates ways to increase the number of trees established in non-woodland settings, including farms, parks, and urban areas. Agroforestry is a core component of this mission, as integrating trees into farmland boosts biodiversity, mitigates climate change, and supports farm businesses. The Agroforestry Designer Toolkit has been created with Land App as part of the project’s Trees on Farms pilot.
By using the Agroforestry Designer Toolkit, farmers and land managers can directly contribute to this vision by designing agroforestry systems that enhance their landscapes while aligning with environmental goals and financial incentives.
Useful Links
For those ready to dive deeper into agroforestry and tree planting strategies, here are some useful resources:
- A Guide to Agroforestry
- Expanding Agroforestry: A Tree Species Guide
- The Agroforestry Handbook
- Agroforestry Benefits from Woodland Trust
- Guidance: How to use the Agroforestry Designer Toolkit on Land App
With the Agroforestry Designer Toolkit, sustainable farming is now more accessible than ever. Whether you’re a farmer looking to boost your land’s productivity or a land agent aiming to advise your clients, this tool provides the flexibility and insight you need to make informed decisions. Start your agroforestry journey today and explore the potential of trees on your land with Land App.
Make a free account with Land App here
With thanks to the following partners:
