Aerial view of a Kelekak agroforestry demofarm with pepper interplanted among banana and timber trees
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Practice at field scale

Demoplot & Demofarm

Places where farmers can test, observe, and adapt agroforestry in real conditions.

01 Why it exists

A demoplot is a farmer-managed learning space. A demofarm takes the same principles to working-farm scale. Together, they let communities test practices in the landscape where they will actually be used.

Field system

How the work
moves together.

  1. 01

    Set out a system

    Pepper, trees, and complementary crops are established in the same field.

  2. 02

    Watch what happens

    Farmers compare growth, yields, soil practice, and management choices.

  3. 03

    Share what travels

    Champion farmers help neighbours adapt what they have learned.

Field record

Demoplot Bangka · 2024 snapshot

Project-reported production and productivity figures; pepper census recorded in December 2024.

3.15 haDemoplot Bangka area
590.2 kgReported pepper production in 2024
0.53 kg/treeReported 2024 productivity

02 How it works

Built for the
real conditions
of a farm.

01

Learn before committing

Pepper, shade trees, food crops, and soil practices can be observed side by side. The field becomes the lesson, not a distant recommendation.

02

Keep the farmer in charge

aGROWforests positions champion farmers as the people who maintain demofarms as productive systems. Their experience keeps the model practical and open to adaptation.

03

Build a model that travels

The aim is not one fixed recipe. It is a set of practices other households can adjust for their own soil, slope, labour, and resources.

03 What it makes possible

Practical change,
held locally.

Working-farm reference

Bedengung Demofarm, Bangka.

Established in 2021 on a site described by aGROWforests as an unproductive palm-oil plantation, this 0.15-hectare syntropic agroforestry demofarm combines pepper and patchouli with durian, belangiran, avocado, petai, calliandra, and coffee. It makes a multi-layered system available for farmers to visit and discuss at field scale.

Area
0.15 ha
Established
2021
System
Syntropic agroforestry

Field documentation

A farmer inspecting clusters of green pepper at a demonstration plot
01Demoplots make pepper performance visible in the conditions farmers know.
Farmers observing a hands-on field demonstration
02Learning happens in the field, through observation and shared discussion.
Aerial view of pepper interplanted with banana and timber trees in a demofarm
03A demofarm shows the spatial logic of a diversified system at working-farm scale.

Sources

Programme documentation
and further reading.

These links distinguish aGROWforests’ own project reporting from the independent context used across this site.

Part of one connected system

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programme network.

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