Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming

by Paul Hawken

Regenerative practices such as tree intercropping use diversity to improve soil health and productivity and align with biological principles. Lower inputs, healthier crops, and higher yields are the outcome. Like many solutions in this book, tree intercropping is rarely undertaken to address global warming. Farmers practice it because it works better, though it declined in Europe for most of the twentieth century in the wake of the industrialization of agriculture. Like all regenerative land-use practices, it increases the carbon content of the soil and productivity of the land. Intercropping provides windbreaks that reduce erosion and creates habitat for birds and beneficial insects. Fast-growing annuals, susceptible to being flattened by wind and rain, can be protected. Deep-rooted plants can draw up subsoil minerals and nutrients for shallow-rooted ones. Vines or creepers have a ready trellis. Light-sensitive crops can be protected from excess sunlight. To top it off, tree intercropping is beautiful—chili peppers and coffee, coconut and marigolds, walnuts and corn, citrus and eggplant, olives and barley, teak and taro, oak and lavender, wild cherry and sunflower, hazel and roses. Triple-cropping is common in tropical areas, with coconut, banana, and ginger grown together. The possible combinations are endless.