Trajectories for agroforestry: perspectives from the 5th World Congress on Agroforestry on "Transitioning to a Viable World'.

This article offers a summary and a critical appreciation of some of the major themes addressed at the Fifth World Congress on Agroforestry, held from 17 to 20 July 2022 in Quebec City, Canada, under the title "Transitioning to a Viable World'. The Congress highlighted the key role of agroforestry practices in meeting some of the most pressing environmental and socio-economic challenges, including adaptation to climate change, maintaining biodiversity, and diversifying economies in rural areas. While there is a consensus on the relevance of disseminating agroforestry practices worldwide, various tensions are emerging, notably between agroforestry systems in contexts of specialised agriculture on the one hand and peasant systems on the other, and between ecological restoration for the purpose of generating carbon credits and restoration projects aiming primarily to meet the needs of communities, whose design and implementation are not dependent on sales of carbon credits. The conference highlighted three different perspectives. The first considers agroforestry from a primarily productivist and technical angle, where the use of a limited number of exotic species is accepted in order to achieve specific production objectives. The second authorises the conversion of diversified ecosystems into plantations, which can be monospecific, of exotic commercial trees, without considering the socio-economic and cultural impacts of such projects. The third perspective calls for a reconsideration of peasant agroforestry systems in order to maintain or recreate diversified and multifunctional agro-ecosystems based on agroforestry. In this perspective, agroforestry is closely linked to agro-ecology, which aims to establish diversified agro-ecosystems and food systems based on local knowledge. One of the main challenges for agroforestry in this case would probably be to put forward, in association with agro-ecology, a new trajectory for the diversification of agro-ecosystems in order to bring about a successful transition to a viable world.