Agroforestry

and
climate change
By: Renee Williams
 Caribbean economy
The caribbean community is particularly known for tourism and agriculture.
Therefore, the impacts of climate change/greenhouse gasses is strongly felt
within the region as weather patterns change, sea levels rise and agriculture
becomes susceptible to natural disasters caused by this change in weather
patterns.
Luckily the Caribbean economy don’t emit as much greenhouse gases as
developed economies. However, with the combination of our greenhouse
gases and developed economies, climate change presents a threat to us all.
As the global economy takes their individual measures to reduce the effects
of climate change. I will be looking at a strategy that Caribbean economies
can utilize in relation to agriculture.
 Objective of Agroforestry
Agroforestry is a mitigation strategy that attempts to
reduce the impact of climate change on the agricultural
sector in particularly that of Caribbean countries or in
economies that are particularly dependent upon
agriculture.
 Agroforestry

This is the implementation of technologies and practices that

simultaneously contribute to increase productivity while reducing
vulnerability and/or emissions. Agroforestry is a land use management
system in which trees or shrubs are grown around or among crops or
pastureland.
It is an agricultural system that combines trees with crops and livestock
on the same plot of land, agroforestry is especially popular in developing
countries because it allows small shareholder farmers who have little land
available to them to maximize their resources. They can plant vegetable
and grain crops around trees that produce fruit, nuts, and wood for
cooking fires, and the trees provide shade for animals that provide milk
 Caribbean Countries that can utilize agroforestry

Some countries have indeed moved away from being so heavily

dependent on agriculture to letting other sectors blossom within
their economy for example Trinidad and Tobago relies on natural
gas. However, there are still some Caribbean economies where
agriculture still plays an important role in their economy in which
agroforestry can be implemented as a climate change mitigation
strategy. These countries are Haiti, Dominica, Grenada and Guyana.
 References
Almeida, J. (2020, September 29). Five adaptation measures to reduce the vulnerability of Latin America and the
Caribbean’s agriculture sector to climate change. Sostenibilidad.
https://blogs.iadb.org/sostenibilidad/en/five-adaptation-measures-to-reduce-the-vulnerability-of-latin-
america-and-the-caribbeans-agriculture-sector-to-climate-change/

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2015, October 23). Agroforestry. All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction and Dissemination of Material Contained on FAO’s Web Site for Educational or Other Non-
Commercial Purposes Are Authorized without Any Prior Written Permission from the Copyright Holders
Provided the Source Is Fully Acknowledged. Reproduction of Material for Resale or Other Commercial
Purposes Is Prohibited without the Written Permission of the Copyright Holders.
http://www.fao.org/forestry/agroforestry/80338/en/#:%7E:text=Agroforestry%20is%20a%20collective
%20name,spatial%20arrangement%20or%20temporal%20sequence.

Stewart, E., Pugh, G., & Jordan, M. (2019, November 11). Buildings Are an Ideal but Overlooked Climate
Solution. World Resources Institute. https://www.wri.org/blog/2019/11/buildings-are-ideal-overlooked-
climate-solution#:%7E:text=The%20International%20Energy%20Agency%20recently,technologies
%20that%20are%20already%20available.
Thank You

Any Questions