European Journal of Sustainable Agroecosystems

Although agroforestry is actively promoted as a climate-smart land-use approach that can harmonize agricultural productivity with carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation, the comparative evidence of this practice from temperate farming areas continues to be limited. This paper presents findings of a comparative study on four agroforestry systems—alley cropping, silvopastoral systems, windbreak systems, and riparian buffers—against conventional monoculture cropping in a cool-temperate mixed farming landscape. The main aim was to measure total ecosystem carbon stocks and analyze biodiversity response among plant, bird, pollinator, and soil animal communities. There were significantly more carbon pools in agroforestry than conventional agriculture, especially riparian buffers and silvopasture, while the highest rate of annual carbon accumulation per unit of area was observed in windbreak systems and alley cropping. In terms of biodiversity, diverse indexes in the case of tree-based systems as compared to conventional cropping were higher, while soil biological parameters were better as well—having the highest values with the increase of the woody cover and litter. Principal component analyses revealed a good correlation between carbon accumulation, biodiversity indices, and soil quality indicators. turnover. These results corroborate the scientific position that incorporating trees in temperate farming systems provides real co-benefits regarding climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation, without any need for causing agricultural production displacement. The results have strong implications for developing land use policies, carbon credit schemes, as well as actual implementation of agroforestry systems into agricultural practice, so as to attain long-term environmental sustainability.