Forestry, Trees & Hedgerows

Agroforestry & Silvopasture

Trees and farming on the same hectare, without losing the scheme claim.

Agroforestry has moved from fringe practice to funded action, but the design decisions — alley width, row orientation, species, protection and machinery compatibility — determine whether it enhances the farming system or slowly strangles it. This module handles design, funding, establishment and the eligibility question that trips most schemes up: whether the land remains agricultural for payment purposes.

Start with Agroforestry See how it works

12 capabilities
4 linked schemes
Offline capable

12: Capabilities in this module
5: Interactive tools
4: Linked support schemes
5: Data integrations
5: Measures reported

The ground reality

What is actually happening in agroforestry in the UK

Agroforestry items have moved between capital grant offers as the English scheme has been restructured, and equivalent options exist within the devolved schemes. The central practical constraint is machinery: alley widths must be a whole multiple of the widest implement, or the system creates permanent inefficiency that outlasts the grant.

Figures are as published at the time of writing. Farm policy and payment rates change frequently — verify against the primary source before relying on any number here.

Capabilities

What Agroforestry does

Every capability below is built on the same underlying record, so entering something once is enough for it to appear wherever it is needed.

Record and plan

Alley cropping design with machinery-width-driven spacing
Silvopasture design with stocking, shelter and browse protection
Row orientation modelling for light interception and shelter effect

Operate and monitor

Species selection for timber, fruit, nut, fodder or shelter objectives
Land eligibility checking so the parcel retains agricultural status where required
Yield impact modelling on the understorey crop or grazing

Comply and evidence

Capital grant application assembly for agroforestry items
Tree protection specification and cost modelling
Establishment and maintenance schedule with labour requirement

Analyse and improve

Carbon and biodiversity uplift estimation for the system
Harvest planning for tree products alongside the farming operation
Long-term system review with productivity and margin reconciliation

Interactive

Tools you actually use, not screens you read

These are working interfaces inside the module — maps, calculators, planners and dashboards that respond to your own holding data.

Alley design calculator taking implement width and returning compliant spacings

Calculator

Light interception model showing understorey yield effect by row orientation

Tool

Whole-system margin comparison against the current land use

Tool

Tree protection cost calculator by system and stocking

Calculator

Scheme eligibility checker for agroforestry land parcels

Wizard

End to end

How Agroforestry runs, start to finish

The module is modelled as a state machine, so at any point the business knows exactly which stage every record is at and what has to happen next.

1

Define the system objective

This is where the record starts, and getting it right here removes work at every later stage.
2

Measure machinery and set alley geometry

The platform prompts only for what this stage genuinely needs, and carries everything forward.
3

Select species and protection

Conflicts with scheme rules, regulatory windows and existing commitments are flagged here rather than discovered later.
4

Confirm land eligibility and scheme fit

Capture works offline, so this stage is completed in the field rather than remembered afterwards.
5

Apply for capital funding

Everything recorded at this point becomes evidence automatically, in every format that will later ask for it.
6

Establish and record

This is the stage most businesses currently do twice, once for the operation and once for the paperwork.
7

Maintain, protect and monitor

Results feed the whole-farm view, so the effect of this stage is visible against the rest of the business.
8

Review system margin and adjust

The cycle closes here, and what is learned is carried into next season's plan rather than lost.

Who uses it

Built around four real jobs, not one generic user

Each of these people needs something different from the same record. The module is designed so none of them has to work around the others.

Arable farmer

Trialling alley cropping on 20 ha

Needs machinery compatibility settled before a single tree is planted.

Dairy farmer

Silvopasture for shade and shelter

Needs to keep the grazing platform eligible for the scheme claim.

Agroforestry designer

Consultancy

Needs a design tool that respects real machinery and real scheme rules.

Landowner

Long-term estate planning

Needs a 40-year view of system value, not a five-year grant view.

Schemes and funding

Support schemes this module works with

Agrivencia holds these schemes as data, so eligibility, payment rates, caps and windows update the day they change rather than at the next software release.

England

Countryside Stewardship

Fund more complex, targeted and bespoke habitat management than the main incentive offer supports.

Rolling and round-based depending on the tier and option group. Defra / Natural England / Rural Payments Agency England

Environmental Land Management Capital Grants

Fund capital works supporting environmental outcomes — boundaries, water, air quality, natural flood management and infrastructure.

Round-based, with rapid allocation once open. Defra / Rural Payments Agency Wales

Sustainable Farming Scheme

Replace area-based direct payments in Wales with a scheme rewarding sustainable land management outcomes.

Scheme year runs to 31 December, with the single application form deadline in mid-May. Welsh Government / Rural Payments Wales England

Sustainable Farming Incentive 2026

Pay farmers for environmental actions taken alongside food production, as the principal replacement for area-based direct payments in England.

Two windows in 2026: window one from 30 June, window two from September. Defra / Rural Payments Agency

Rates, caps and windows change frequently and sometimes without notice. Always confirm against the current published scheme rules before applying.

Measurement

How you will know it is working

The module reports against these measures from the day it is switched on, so the value is demonstrable rather than assumed.

01Hectares under agroforestry
02Tree survival rate
03Understorey yield versus control
04Whole-system gross margin
05Scheme eligibility retained

Questions answered

What people ask about Agroforestry

Does this replace the software I already use?

Not necessarily. Agrivencia integrates with authoritative sources and mainstream packages rather than insisting on replacing them. Where an incumbent does one job well, the platform connects to it; where the job spans several systems and nobody does it, the platform does it.

Will it work where I have no signal?

Yes. Field capture in Agroforestry is offline first, storing locally and synchronising when a connection returns. Only around a fifth of UK farms report reliable signal across the whole holding, so this is a design assumption rather than a feature.

What happens when the scheme rules change?

Scheme rules are held as data rather than code, so a rate change, a cap change or a window closure is a content update that takes effect the same day. The platform also alerts you to what the change does to your own position.

Who owns the data I put in?

You do. The Farm Data Charter gives you a complete export in open formats at any time, and every instance of data sharing requires an explicit, revocable consent that is visible in your account.

Does it work if I farm across a border?

Yes, and that is one of the main reasons the platform exists. A business with land in more than one nation sees one reconciled view rather than two portals, with obligations and deadlines from both administrations in a single calendar.

Can my agronomist or land agent use it too?

Yes. You grant scoped, time-limited access per holding and per module, and you can revoke it in one click. Advisers never get a shared password or a blanket view.

What is the biggest limitation of this module?

Machinery incompatibility locked in permanently. Mitigated by width-first design. We would rather state that plainly than let you discover it after signing.

Because everything shares one record, adding a neighbouring module usually costs less work than it saves.

Forestry & Woodland Creation Plant it once, fund it four ways, and keep the felling licence in order. Tree Health & Biosecurity Ash dieback, plant passports and the pests already on their way. Hedgerows & Field Boundaries Measured in metres, paid in metres, evidenced in metres. Crop Farming & Precision Agriculture One cropping record that feeds agronomy, assurance and scheme evidence at once. Soil Health & Structure Sampling, structure and the 2030 target nobody has a baseline for. Land, Mapping & Field Boundaries The canonical boundary graph every other module reads from.

See Agroforestry running on your own holding

Thirty minutes, using your parcels, your schemes and your enterprises rather than a sample farm. No obligation and no sales script — if it does not fit your business we will say so.

Free tier available
No card required
Your data stays yours

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