Agroforestry and Diversified Farming Systems as Climate Buffers: Implications for Climate-resilient Agriculture
Aravind B Rathod *
Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, India.
Shubhashree Sahu
NRSC, Scientist-B, Hyderabad, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Agroforestry practices play a pivotal role in addressing the dual challenges of climate change mitigation and adaptation. The intensification of climate change poses unprecedented challenges to global food production systems, threatening agricultural stability through rising temperatures, erratic precipitation, extreme weather events, and accelerating land degradation. Agroforestry and diversified farming systems have emerged as scientifically credible and practically viable strategies for enhancing the resilience of agricultural landscapes to these climate-driven pressures. This review synthesises a broad body of evidence drawn from peer-reviewed literature published between 1993 and 2024 to evaluate the roles of agroforestry and diversified farming systems as climate buffers across ecological, agronomic, and socioeconomic scales. This review was conducted through a systematic search of peer-reviewed academic literature using multiple bibliographic databases, including Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, and PubMed. The review examines how the deliberate integration of trees and perennial vegetation with annual crops and livestock modulates microclimate, sequesters carbon, conserves soil and water, and reduces vulnerability to climatic extremes. Evidence from multiple tropical, subtropical, and temperate contexts confirms that well-designed agroforestry systems can sequester substantial quantities of carbon in both above-ground biomass and soil organic matter, whilst simultaneously improving food security and farmer livelihoods. Diversified farming systems, including polycultures, intercropping, and integrated crop–livestock arrangements, are shown to enhance functional biodiversity, distribute agricultural risk, and maintain productivity under variable climatic conditions. The review also identifies critical gaps in the literature, including insufficient long-term data on system performance under future climate scenarios and limited integration of gender and equity dimensions in agroforestry research. Policy frameworks that align agroforestry with national climate adaptation and mitigation commitments are found to be nascent but growing. The synthesis underscores the need for systemic transitions from input-intensive monocultures towards diversified, tree-integrated landscapes as a cornerstone of climate-smart agriculture globally.
Keywords: Agroforestry, climate resilience, carbon sequestration, diversified farming systems, climate-smart agriculture, ecosystem services, food security, intercropping