Many New Zealand pastoral farmers have experienced severe financial hardship due to lowerthan- adequate product prices and adverse climatic conditions in recent years. It is perhaps now appropriate to look at alternative land use for a proportion of their farm.Wood is a product which the world is desperately short of, and New Zealand can grow wood better than virtually anywhere else in the world. When we look at world demand for wood, both now and in the near future, we see that plantings are not keeping up with expected demands. The world would need an area 6 times that of New Zealand (i.e. 160 million ha) to satisfy the demand. At present, we only harvest 1.6% of the world's total harvest. In New Zealand the trend is in the right direction, with production predicted to reach 25 million cubic metres by 2015 (2.5 times present production). This will require 9.4% of the land area of New Zealand, but will produce $16 billion, more than wool, meat and dairy together. Agroforestry gives farmers the opportunity to spread their risk beyond traditional agricultural products, and also participate in this growing industry of forestry. The question should not be whether trees are planted on some of our own farm land, but who will do it. Farmers have been slow to convert, but economics will prevail. Keywords: agroforesty, economics, hill country, marginal hill country
