FOREST4EU's European Agroforestry Innovations Conclude
By CORDIS (EU Research Results)
TL;DR: A European project has successfully connected local agroforestry innovations to create a continent-wide knowledge-sharing network.
- Project FOREST4EU fostered agroforestry knowledge exchange across Europe.
- Local initiatives were linked to create a European solution repository.
- Multi-language resources overcome fragmentation of innovations.
- Peer learning strengthened cross-border practitioner networks.
- Innovations include water management, Keyline design, and remote sensing.
Why it matters: Connecting local agroforestry innovations across Europe helps scale nature-based solutions for climate adaptation and sustainable land management.
Do this next: Explore the FOREST4EU thematic innovation hubs for practices relevant to your farm or forest.
Recommended for: Farmers, forest managers, and community leaders interested in implementing and scaling agroforestry solutions across diverse European contexts.
The CORDIS article ‘Connecting agroforestry innovations across Europe’ presents a comprehensive overview of the EU-funded FOREST4EU project as it reached its conclusion in December 2025, documenting the project’s work to gather, translate, disseminate and help scale practical agroforestry innovations across Europe. FOREST4EU focused on linking local Operational Groups (OGs)—small, multi-actor initiatives run by farmers, forest managers and communities—to create a European-level repository of nature-based solutions (NbSs) and tools for forestry and agroforestry practitioners. A central problem the project sought to address was the fragmentation of OG outputs: innovations that worked locally often remained confined to national or regional contexts, limiting transfer and uptake elsewhere. To overcome this, FOREST4EU collected and made available videos, technical briefs and factsheets in multiple languages, structured around thematic innovation hubs (ITHUBs) that included wood mobilisation, forest adaptation to climate change, sustainable forest management and ecosystem services, non-wood forest products, and agroforestry systems. The article highlights how FOREST4EU promoted peer learning through study visits and hands-on exchanges; at least one participant per partner country joined each exchange, strengthening cross-border networks and enabling practitioners in different countries to compare solutions for similar problems. Several operational innovations received detailed coverage: tools to monitor water movement and reduce erosion and flood risk using mapped field data; Keyline landscape-management approaches tested in drought-prone areas of Italy and Portugal to channel scarce water to young trees and crops; and the adaptation of remote sensing tools (drones and satellite imagery) originally used for Mediterranean forests to detect drought stress and pest outbreaks and then applied in Latvia via training with real data. The project also produced six policy briefs and extended summaries intended to make local solutions more accessible to policymakers and practitioners, and it helped influence policy discussions—FOR EXAMPLE, exchanges in Croatia contributed to ministerial-level agreement to open Common Agricultural Policy innovation measures to the forestry sector in future programming. FOREST4EU’s coordinator, Francesca Giannetti, is quoted describing the project rationale: similar operational problems occur across countries and making innovations available at the European level facilitates transfer and scaling. The article concludes by noting that FOREST4EU’s work will be carried forward by a successor project, FORADVISE, under Horizon Europe, intended to build on FOREST4EU’s networks and strengthen advisory systems for forestry and agroforestry across Europe. Overall, the piece serves as both a project summary and a practical guide for stakeholders seeking tested NbSs, practical training materials and policy-oriented syntheses to support broader adoption of agroforestry innovations across varied European landscapes.