Agroforestry Polygons: a multifunctional land reclamation mechanism

Different historical reasons lead to land abandonment and underutilisation in the Galician countryside:
- Excessive fragmentation of ownership
- Ageing of the population structure
- Emigration of the working population from the countryside to the city.
- Gradual abandonment of agricultural activity
The combination of all these factors has socio-economic and environmental consequences in the short, medium and long term perspectives.
The socio-economic consequences can be summarised as follows: the existence of very small properties with little economic viability, lack of generational change on farms, abandonment of the land and even ignorance of the identity of the owners.
This prevents rational and sustainable land management and generates new problems related to the provision of ecosystem services.
In response to this, the Xunta de Galicia approved Law 11/2021, of 14 May, on the recovery of agricultural land in Galicia. One of the main objectives of the law is to connect land supply and land demand, allowing the creation of agroforestry polygons. An agroforestry polygon is created by joining several parcels of land in a state of abandonment or underutilization in order to bring them back into production, applying mixed practices (agricultural, livestock and forestry). In this way, it is achieved:
- Recovering production in areas of land with good productive capacity, abandoned or underused;
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