Ben Raskin is Head of Horticulture and Agroforestry at the Soil Association. He is also working at Eastbrook Farm in the UK, where he is overseeing the implementation of various agroforestry systems over the last few years, mainly focused on silvopasture. Ben gives us some detailed feedback on these first years on the farm : the design of the different fields, what species they have chosen and why, as well as how they approached weed control and tree protection from livestock. Ben is passionate about wood chips and he explains how they are using them on the farm and with what results. We also discuss how to integrate agroforestry in the workflow and skillset of an existing large scale farm.

• TABLE OF CONTENTS

01:17 Introduction

06:52 Eastbrook farm

08:17 Motives for planting trees

13:17 Agroforestry systems on the farm

29:22 Suppressing weeds and wood chips

41:47 Scaling the supply of woodchips

49:07 Protecting trees

57:39 Bringing the agroforestry skillset onto farms

01:07:17 Knowledge and managing a complex system

01:12:02 Selling the produce of diversification

01:18:29 Mistakes and learnings 

• RESOURCES

https://helenbrowningsorganic.co.uk/eastbrook-farm/

https://www.soilassociation.org/farmers-growers/technicalinformation/agroforestry-handbook/

https://www.benraskin.com/general-8

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