Food Science and Agriculture: Research Highlights Vol. 9

Agroforestry is increasingly promoted as a climate-smart land-use strategy because trees can alter carbon storage, microclimate, water and nutrient cycling, biodiversity, and the temporal distribution of farm outputs. Yet the label "multifunctional" can obscure substantial variation among systems and can encourage the assumption that adding trees necessarily improves both production and environmental performance. This critical narrative review evaluates when, how and with what trade-offs agroforestry supports sustainable agricultural production under climate change. Literature published from 1 January 2000 to 20 June 2026 was considered, with earlier seminal evidence eligible where conceptually necessary. Evidence was synthesised across silvoarable, silvopastoral, shade-perennial, multistrata, windbreak, boundary-planting and improved-fallow systems, with emphasis on carbon mitigation, adaptation, productivity, biodiversity, hydrology, soil function, economic performance and adoption. The strongest evidence supports increases in woody biomass carbon and, relative to treeless cropland or pasture, frequent gains in soil organic carbon and several regulating ecosystem services. Evidence for climate adaptation is mechanistically persuasive for thermal buffering, erosion control and resource-use complementarity, but long-term demonstrations that these processes consistently stabilise yields during extreme events remain less abundant. Commodity yields may decline when shade, tree density or competition exceed crop-specific thresholds, even where total system output, carbon storage or profitability improves. Hydrological responses are non-linear, and conversion of natural forest to agroforestry cannot be treated as a conservation gain. Socioeconomic outcomes depend on delayed tree returns, tenure security, labour, knowledge, markets and policy design. The synthesis therefore supports a conditional rather than categorical interpretation of agroforestry: climate-smart performance emerges when tree species, density, spatial arrangement and management are matched to limiting resources, baseline land use, farmer objectives and future climate exposure. Research and policy should prioritise long-term, multi-outcome comparisons that measure whole-system production, risk, greenhouse-gas balance, biodiversity and livelihood outcomes together rather than optimising a single service in isolation.