Samenvatting

Agroforestry in the Netherlands is taking a momentum, the professional practice is slowly but increasingly adopting agroforestry as an agricultural practice and clear government efforts are acknowledging the importance of agroforestry asa climate adaptive option that aligns with national goals. However, farmers are still facing a wide variety of challenges which also lie on policy issues. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the current bottlenecks and barriers that farmers perceive and experience in the implementation of agroforestry in the Netherlands. This review has been carried out building upon the results of an online survey where perceived bottlenecks were identified (total N=3,500 farmers and other stakeholders). Based on the aforementioned results the current relevant EC’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) normative provisions andthe Dutch national rules and regulations that promote agroforestry are referred. We also identify the potential bottlenecks that the transition to the new CAP imposes to the implementation of agroforestry. Main bottlenecks fell under three categories, i.e. issues about technical knowledge, business models, and rules and regulations. Main subjects that were raised under the rules and regulations category were unclarity on current provisions at EU and national level (e.g. CAP), registration of crops under agroforestry and related subsidies, governance at national and provincial level. Thereafter the EC’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) normative provisions and the Dutch national rules and regulations that are acting as barriers were linked to these raised subjects. Various CAP provisions concur with previous identified policy issues that are shared with other EU member states, however many require adaptations of rules and regulations at the national, provincial and municipality level and a coordinated governance among these levels.