Agroforestry and Soil Management

SLU has a strong international profile and extensive experience in the area of Agroforestry and Soil management. These two subject areas have a strong relation as much of the Agroforestry research and capacity building is specifically about applied Soil science. SLU’s major strength is in biogeochemical aspects of Agroforestry and fundamental and applied Soil science, but our research groups also have significant experience and expertise in socio-economic aspects of applied land-use in these fields. Soil management is applied Soil science and as such a major subject for teaching and research education, while Agroforestry is a specific land-use. Therefore, our capacity and activity in this subject is more extensive as compared to Soil management.

Most of our research and teaching cover Swedish temperate and boreal agriculture. Significant parts also deal with research and capacity building in tropical and subtropical agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America. The research topics in the Southern regions are diverse and include issues such as integrated soil fertility management (ISFM), soil biology, organic matter and carbon management, bio-char, climate adaptation, pathogens and weeds, water dynamics, specific roles of tree densities and species in all these aspects, as well as market and livelihood relations. 

Within SLU there is Agroforestry and Soil management competence at two faculties – the Faculty of Natural Resource Management and Agricultural Sciences located at SLU’s main campus in Uppsala, and at the Faculty of Forest Sciences, with its main location in Umeå in Northern Sweden. The location at two faculties partly mirrors two points of entry to “Agroforestry and Soil science”, either from agriculture or from knowledge about trees and forest management. Today the expertise and activity of the two faculties in these fields are much overlapping, especially in the groups dealing with Agroforestry and Soil science in tropical environments.

The departments mainly dealing with Soil science at SLU are the Department of Soil and Environment (Uppsala) and the Department of Forest Ecology and Management (Umeå). Issues related to Soil science and Soil management are also dealt with at the Department of Crop Production Ecology, the Department of Ecology, the Department of Energy and Technology, the Department of Microbiology and the Department of Forest Mycology and Plant Pathology. Most of the Agroforestry activities are also placed within these units. 

The total numbers of teachers involved in agroforestry and soil management are approximately 50 (above post-doc level) with 11 professors and 40 researchers for the Soil and Environment department alone. There are presently around 20 PhD students and the Department of Soil and Environment offers approximately 20 courses annually at BSc and MSc level catering for approximately 5-130 students per course. Corresponding figures for the Department of Forest Ecology and Management are 6 professors and 16 researchers involved in soil management including Agroforestry and the related numbers of ongoing PhD students are more than 10.

The Department of Soil and Environment contributed with approximately 1.4 reviewed papers per scientist with an H-index of 4.64, published in peer-reviewed journals within the area of soil science from 2008 and onwards. Similar figures for Soil science at Department of Forest Ecology and management was 1.7 reviewed papers per scientist and with a H-index of 5.0 for 2011 alone.

Over the last 10 years more than 20 PhD students were examined in Tropical Agroforestry or closely related subjects. Most of these were students in capacity building programs.

Relevant MSc programs include Soil and Water Management as well as involvement in EnvEuro - Environmental Science in Europe. A multitude of PhD level courses are given in Soil science within SLU and two specific research schools: Focus on Soils and Water and Global Natural Resource Management and Livelihoods, offer PhD students specialized disciplinary training as well as multi-disciplinary approaches and networking opportunities.

In addition, the area of agroforestry and soil management has a long history of successful international collaboration, particularly in Africa. Long-standing collaborations with CGIAR centers, such as IITA, CIAT-TSBF, ICRAF and CIFOR, exist and can also provide the basis for international opportunities for multi-disciplinary career development and research and capacity building collaboration in areas of natural resource management.