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6th World Congress on Agroforestry

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World Congress on Agroforestry

The 6th World Congress on Agroforestry will be held in Kigali, Rwanda from 20 – 24 October 2025 under the theme Agroforestry for People, Planet, and Profit. This global event brings together agroforestry stakeholders to advance research and practices in sustainable land management, climate change adaptation and mitigation, and resilient agro-ecosystems.
Congress Thematic Sessions
Contribution of agroforestry in a changing climate
Agroforestry for biodiversity and eco-systems services
Agroforestry for improved livelihoods
Agroforestry for sustainable food systems
Agroforestry’s contributions to bioeconomy
Agroforestry traditions, knowledge and innovation
Agroforestry’s financial and policy frameworks
Agroforestry for silvopastoral systems
Multistrata agroforestry systems with perennial crops
ABOUT THE CONGRESS

The 6th World Congress on Agroforestry

The World Congress on Agroforestry is an international event that brings together different stakeholders in agroforestry to exchange on the advancement of research and practices in agroforestry systems, natural resource management, and climate change adaptation and mitigation for sustainable and resilient agro-ecosystems.

Under the main theme, Agroforestry for People, Planet & Profit, the 6th World Congress on Agroforestry 2025 will take place in Kigali, Rwanda, from 20 – 24 October, 2025, will bring together leading experts to share their latest research, innovations, and practices in the field of agroforestry. And the congress organizer is pleased to inform you that the abstract submission is now open until April 30, 2025.

Farmers, researchers, advisors, policymakers, and representatives from governments, the civil society and the private sector from all over the world are invited to submit their abstract of recent research, development project or innovative field work findings for either a poster or oral presentation to support a free-flowing discussion on cutting-edge agroforestry research and best practices.

This 6th World Congress on Agroforestry will brainstorm impressive conditions on how to use trees to boost the incomes of ever-growing smallholder farmers, as well as bring solutions to numerous ecological, social, and economic needs and challenges in agroforestry.

Featured Speakers

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Hon. Dr. Valentine Uwamariya
Minister of Environment, Rwanda
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Patrick Worms
President, International Union for Agroforestry (IUAF)
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Éliane Ubalijoro
Chief Executive Officer, Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF)
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Teddy Mugabo
Chief Executive Officer, Rwanda Green Fund

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Contribution of agroforestry in a changing climate

Agroforestry contributes to climate change mitigation through sequestering carbon in biomass and soils, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and avoiding emissions by regulating global and local temperatures. Agroforestry is contributing to climate change adaptation by increasing the resilience of farmers and agricultural systems against climate risks, providing a range of biophysical and socioeconomic benefits. Research that investigates agroforestry’s contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, carbon neutrality, climate variability and vulnerability, adaptive capacity, resilience building, biophysical and climate modelling and projections will be considered in this topic for discussion.

Agroforestry for biodiversity and eco-systems services

integration of agroforestry trees and practices in cropping and grazing systems contributes to the restoration of ecosystem functionality in agriculture, including biodiversity restoration, and is therefore a promising intervention to manage land and aquatic ecosystems and boost their functionality. Researches that discusses the role of trees outside forests such as agroforestry’s vital role in restoration of multi functional ecosystems that promotes agricultural productivity, biodiversity conservation and functionality, and reverses landscape degradation such as deforestation, soil erosion, improving soil health, water ecosystem function and watershed management, cooling cities and urban landscapes will be considered in this topic.

Agroforestry for improved livelihoods

Agroforestry contributes to livelihood improvement, through increasing resilience to extraneous shocks such as extreme weather, broadening of the range of goods and services that can be produced, consumed and sold (e.g., NTFPs) from a farm, and by reducing input costs per unit of production, thus boosting farm profit. Agroforestry systems have been shown to bring improvements in the socioeconomic status of farmers, farm productivity, social inclusion, and poverty reduction and nature-based market enterprises. These may come with trade-offs, including some affecting gender and equity: as agroforestry changes the way the farm operates, it impacts the distribution of labour and capital inputs, and of nutritional and financial returns, by household members. These issues are linked to scalability and are a function of both farming practices and culture. Research on the livelihood benefits of agroforestry systems and on the trade-offs between various economic, environmental, and social benefits will be considered in this topic, including the impact of agroforestry on household and community dynamics, interventions to reduce gender and community inequality distributions, and anthropological factors affecting tree use.

Agroforestry for sustainable food systems

Agroforestry contributes to ensuring food security through food availability, food accessibility, food utilisation, and food stability. Agroforestry provides food directly such as nuts, fruits, honey and leafy vegetables to increase availability, creating income to increase food accessibility i.e. sales of surplus, providing fuel for cooking to address food utilisation, and by supporting other ecosystem services to ensure food stability like supporting agrobiodiversity, perennial crops, increasing soil fertility, health and water function. Research topics to be covered under this theme will include agroforestry’s role for food and nutritional security, climate-smart agricultural practices, value chain, food distribution, consumption, nutrition and health.

Agroforestry’s contributions to bioeconomy

Agroforestry systems provide opportunities to address multiple environmental and socioeconomic challenges by proposing sustainable ways of producing a range of products for the bioeconomy, including biomass for energy. It can play a critical role in reducing resource scarcity by contributing multiple feedstocks to the wider economy. Research topics to be covered under this theme will include agroforestry systems and their applications to diverse bioeconomy products (wood, fibre and non-wood products, biomass for energy, etc.) and related production systems such as agrivoltaics.

Agroforestry traditions, knowledge and innovation The rising stochasticity of weather caused by the climate crisis, including floods, drought, and other weather extremes, are damaging agriculture and forestry worldwide, and are beginning to impact global bio-based commodity markets. Concurrently, the traditional knowledge of managing farming systems for resilience to external shocks provided through mixed farming practices such as agroforestry is being rapidly lost around the world. This is driving the development of efforts that seek to record and protect traditional knowledge and integrate it with agroforestry innovation systems to achieve greater economic and ecosystemic efficiency and higher resilience to climate and market shocks. These efforts include technologies drawn, amongst others, from life sciences and artificial intelligence, management tools and techniques, and policy and regulatory innovations. They inform current and future projections of land use management to improve productivity, resilience, and profitability, and tracking and estimating impacts and greenhouse gas emissions. Research topics to be covered under this theme will include traditional knowledge assimilation and dissemination, and any innovations designed to make the farming and forestry systems more resilient to the climate crisis, including land management innovations, tree improvement technologies, farm mechanisation and automation, big data, spatial and temporal data acquisition and management.

Agroforestry’s financial and policy frameworks

This session will examine trends in the policies, governance models and financial frameworks that impact all agroforestry systems, from Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) to intensive polycropping systems, with a focus on the interactions between regulatory and financial environments and farm-level decisions (the right policies can see trees multiply rapidly in the landscape, while misaligned policies can see trees rapidly disappearing). The session will focus on regulatory and financial environments that impact land restoration and discourage private-sector investment in nature-based solutions at all scales, from communities to transnational corporations. It will discuss the role of certification, carbon markets and the newly developing biodiversity markets, as well as the interaction between international agreements, national and subnational policies and their implementation. It will also look at the incentive pathways of public and private actors that affect land restoration. Research topics to be covered under this theme will include policy and regulatory reviews, regulatory and/or financial modelling, climate and biodiversity finance modelling, innovative ES market mechanisms, and studies of incentive pathways.

Agroforestry for silvopastoral systems

The integration of animals and plants is important to close biogeochemical cycles. Trees can improve animal welfare through shade, microclimates and the provision of fodder. The world’s drylands occupy a vast proportion of the land surface of our planet and are typically managed through various forms of grazing systems, including ranching, nomadic pastoralism, and combinations of livestock and wildlife management. The integration of trees in these grazing systems, including through natural regeneration (assisted natural regeneration – ANR or Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration – FMNR) has been suggested as a major contributor to greenhouse gas mitigation, while innovative ways of managing grazing systems can be deployed to increase grass and tree biomass in those environments. The impact of livestock in silvoarable systems can also be significant, notably through the suppression of weed growth and the addition of manure-derived fertility. Research topics to be covered under this theme will include studies of the carbon and ecosystem benefits of silvopastoral systems, the integration of livestock in silvoarable systems, the management of nomadic pastoralism for ecosystem benefit, and studies of different grazing management styles on wildlife, trees and livestock in silvopastoral systems.

Multistrata agroforestry systems with perennial crops

Multistrata agroforestry systems involve cultivating tree crops like coffee, cocoa, and oil palm alongside herbaceous crops or under tree canopies, also encompassing fruit-based forest gardens and homegardens. These systems offer significant ecosystem services, benefiting both family livelihoods and the environment. The design and management of these systems are crucial for maximizing their potential while minimizing competition between crops and trees. Topics for discussion at the congress include climate change adaptation, deforestation avoidance, biodiversity conservation, product diversification, value chain development, and the legal and institutional support needed for sustainable agroforestry. The event aims to share knowledge and strategies to optimize the design and management of these agroforestry systems.

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Farmers, researchers, advisors, policymakers, and representatives from government, civil society and private sector are invited to submit abstracts for:

📊 Present Your Work

Share your recent research, development projects, or innovative field work in agroforestry through oral or poster presentations.

🌱 Thematic Areas

  • Contribution of agroforestry in a changing climate
  • Agroforestry for biodiversity and eco-systems services
  • Agroforestry for improved livelihoods
  • Agroforestry for sustainable food systems
  • Agroforestry's contributions to bioeconomy
  • Agroforestry traditions, knowledge and innovation
  • Agroforestry's financial and policy frameworks
  • Agroforestry for silvopastoral systems
  • Multistrata agroforestry systems with perennial crops
IMPORTANT DATE:
Abstract Submission Deadline: April 30, 2025
SUBMIT YOUR ABSTRACT
Questions? Contact us at: info@agroforestry2025.org