Much depends on the landscape context in which reforestation occurs and the ways in which it is carried out. Reforestation in a completely denuded landscape may be beneficial but may be less so in a landscape that still retains some forest cover.
Large contiguous areas of reforestation may cause water table to decline and this may have negative consequences for cropping in some location. but positive outcomes in others. Planting trees (or enabling regrowth) in smaller patches or as scattered individual trees may reduce such changes to water tables while also yielding other marketable goods. Trees planted as windbreaks may increase crop yields in area subject to wind erosion but not in areas where wind erosion is less problematic. That is, the relationship between reforestation and cropping is not simple. Perhaps we should be thinking of this not just in terms of a single variable like crop yield but in terms of overall farm income, exposure to risk or in changes to landscape functionality?
Much depends on the landscape context in which reforestation occurs and the ways in which it is carried out. Reforestation in a completely denuded landscape may be beneficial but may be less so in a landscape that still retains some forest cover.
Large contiguous areas of reforestation may cause water table to decline and this may have negative consequences for cropping in some location. but positive outcomes in others. Planting trees (or enabling regrowth) in smaller patches or as scattered individual trees may reduce such changes to water tables while also yielding other marketable goods. Trees planted as windbreaks may increase crop yields in area subject to wind erosion but not in areas where wind erosion is less problematic. That is, the relationship between reforestation and cropping is not simple. Perhaps we should be thinking of this not just in terms of a single variable like crop yield but in terms of overall farm income, exposure to risk or in changes to landscape functionality?