In forest farming,
high-value specialty
crops are cultivated
under the
protection of a forest
canopy that has been
modified and manged to
produce This is neither
forestry nor farming in
the traditional sense. It is
an agroforestry practice
characterized by
intentional, integrated,
intensive and interactive
management of an existing
forested ecosystem
wherein forest health is of
paramount concern.
Forest farm management
principles constitute an
ecological approach to
forest management
through efforts to find a
balance between conservation of native
biodiversity and wildlife habitat within the forest and limited, judicious
utilization of the forest's varied resources. It attempts to bring secondary
growth forests that have been overused and dsrupted back into
ecological balance through careful, intentional manipulation over time,
emulating natural processes to restore original, natural diversity of
species. In some instances, the intentional introduction of species for use
as botanicals, medicinals or food products is added in combination with
native species. The five categories of specialty crops are foods
(mushrooms, nuts, vegetables, honey from bee plants, herbs, fruits,
edible flowers, sap products), botanical products (e.g. Broom, liquorice),
decoratives (e.g. mosses, ferns, Eucalyptus), handicrafts (basketry
materials), and wood products (fuelwood, charcoal, specialty woods for
carving, incense, garden mulches from clipped wooss and coppice). The
methods of forest farming include
i. intensive, but cautious thinning of overstocked, suppressed tree
stands; and
ii. multiple integrated entries
to accomplish thinning
of healthy trees
and shrubs of all ages and
species, rather than a
monoculture of
timber species.
Forest farm management is a type of forest stewardship ethic whose
objective is to restore and maintain the health of the forest land's many
and varied ecosystems. The benefits include economic benefits (e.g. sale
of ginseng, logs, floral decoratives), modification of the ecosystem
without ecosystem disruption, and provision of opportunities for shortterm income from existing woodlands. The drawbacks include the
higher requirement of entrepreneurial attitude from farmers and
landowners, need for research to locate potential buyers of specialty
products, and high labour requirement.