An evaluation of agroforestry on a Bay of Plenty hill country farm

Abstract

Between 1970 and 1991,53 ha of Pinus radiata plantations were established and managed in an agroforestry system on a 245 ha farm at Roydon Downs in the eastern Bay of Plenty. Plantations on a further 30 haareplanned. This paperoutlines the experience gained, and uses recently developed agroforestry modelling systems to evaluate the current and projected physical yields, cash flow and profitability of several agroforestry options when applied to a typical Bay of Plenty sheep and beef farm, The increasing availability of genetically improved tree stocks, together with developments in silvicultural techniques, have resulted in a low cost, easily managed tree crop, using mainly family labour. The objective is to produce high quality domestic or export sawlogs and peeler logs. Planting the least productive third of the farm is predicted to more than double the total farm surplus. For farming to provide an equivalent economic return from the same land, gross margins would have to increase from $29 to $60/livestock unit (LSU). or livestock carrying capacity would have to increase from 8 to 16 LSU/ha. Options involving 135 stems/ha and 225 stems/ha gave a similar economic return. However, concerns about the quality of the final product indicate that cash flow constraints should be met by varying the size and rate of planting, rather than by reducing final crop stocking. A method of financing initial costs based on sharing final revenues with investors is presented. Keywords agroforestry, Pinus radiata, estate model, profitability