Cacao farm of Pablo Granda, who arrived at San Martín from Ayabaca, Piura. Photo by Marlon del Aguila Guerrero/CIFOR-ICRAF

In Peru’s northern region of San Martín, farmers, practitioners, policymakers, and other stakeholders involved in advancing agroforestry have collaborated closely with researchers to develop an innovative agroforestry-focused decision-making platform.

Known as the SMART platform, this initiative—named after the region—has been in development since 2021. It harnesses participants’ collective knowledge to deliver practical and accessible information, promoting agroforestry practices. Developed through an iterative co-design process led by a community of practice (CoP), the digital platform is intended to enable evidence-based interventions.

“It has taken two years of stakeholder engagement to bring the platform to its current form,” said Rocio Vasquez, research associate in governance and evidence-based engagement for the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) and focal point for the initiative. “Together, we’ve built momentum to underscore the importance of evidence, data and information-sharing in formats that meet the needs of those making decisions on agroforestry interventions.”

“The goal is to build a shared vision for agroforestry in San Martin by integrating diverse knowledge, interests and roles to strengthen decision-making and investment,” Vasquez added.

The SMART community of practice comprises more than 20 organizations, cooperatives, government agencies, academics and others committed to advancing agroforestry in the region. San Martin is one of CIFOR-ICRAF’s ‘engagement landscape’ – locations where the organization conducts long-term, focused work to drive transformational change and build resilience through structured engagement that facilitates investments.

Following the platform’s official launch in February 2024, the regional government recognized SMART’s significance, declaring SMART to be of special interest due to its pivotal role in supporting agroforestry initiatives.

Also, in 2024, SMART entered a new phase, with members actively co-designing a new module to enhance the platform’s capacity to monitor agroforestry interventions.  “The Socio-ecological outcomes of agroforestry intersect with biodiversity, climate change, food security and equity. Actors need an integrated framework of indicators to track progress and assess the impacts of their interventions across these multiple dimensions,” says Valentina Robiglio, senior land use system scientist at CIFOR-ICRAF and coordinator of agroforestry work in Peru.

“This is crucial because not all forms of agroforestry are sustainable,” said Robiglio. “Sustainability depends on factors like design, composition, management, and the capacity of implementing actors to realize benefits in the short, medium and long term. This should also be assessed across multiple levels – from plot to landscape. Assessments must also consider multiple levels—from plots to entire landscapes. SMART aims to support agroforestry practices aligned with the 13 principles of agroecology, blending nature-based solutions and agroecology concepts to focus on shared outcomes rather than semantic distinctions.”

Given the diverse stakeholders involved in SMART, the monitoring approach must reflect participating institutions and organisations’ varying objectives and operational contexts. Agroforestry spans agricultural, economic, social, and environmental dimensions, each of which can be measured in multiple ways. Even seemingly straightforward metrics, like farmers’ income, can have varied interpretations and assessment methods.

In May and July of this year, representatives from SMART’s Community of Practice (CoP) gathered for two workshops—supported by the Metrics Project and the TRANSITIONS program under the Transformative Partnership Platform on Agroecology (Agroecology TPP). They aimed to define metrics for collaborative, holistic assessments of agroforestry interventions.

Thinking in an integrated way

During the first workshop, held on 30 and 31 May, participants focused on setting objectives and a framework for the assessment—an iterative process that established the foundation for the monitoring. In the second workshop, held on July 8-9, discussions revolved around identifying the measuring processes, the information required for decision-making, and mapping existing data sources and institutions responsible for generating them. One major challenge emerged: achieving consensus on what constitutes success and the appropriate indicators to measure it.

“This was particularly complex given the diversity of the CoP, which includes farmers, cooperatives, regional and local governments, agriculture agencies, investors, policymakers and non-profit environmental organizations,” said Vasquez. “Each group has its own understanding of interventions and objectives, including institutional requirements for evaluating and reporting.”

Initially, discussions around agroforestry impact measurement centered on crop productivity. However, the second workshop expanded this view, breaking down dimensions based on desired intervention outcomes. Participants began by grouping results under two broad categories— ‘livelihoods’ and ‘ecosystem services’ —and then refined these into specific goals, target platform users, measurement methods and data sources. Notably, the scope of livelihoods evolved from income-related elements—like production diversification, productivity, and access to technical services—to include health, gender equity, governance, and knowledge.

Reinforcing a ‘culture of evidence’

The next phase involves CIFOR-ICRAF proposing a set of indicators aligned with the dimensions identified during the workshops. These indicators will be integrated into the SMART platform, offering a comprehensive library of metrics to help users build frameworks and tailor the monitoring to their needs—whether focusing on soil health, crop production, or biodiversity enhancement.

“The library won’t contain data itself”, Vasquez and Robiglio clarified. “Instead, it will allow users to specify what they want to measure and at what scale”. The module, currently under development, will include a search engine suggesting relevant indicators, each accompanied by an information sheet detailing its significance, measurement methods, data sources and visualization options.

“There is still considerable programming ahead before the module is ready for launch”, Vasquez and Robiglio said. Future workshops will focus on optimizing the presentation and visualization of information to ensure user-friendliness.

This work represents another step toward SMART’s mission: fostering evidence-based agroforestry decision-making and investment through a collaborative platform design process. By building capacity for context-specific, farmer-centered agroforestry intervention co-design, SMART is driving transformational change.

“Although SMART involves a wide range of stakeholders—government agencies, international cooperation, and civil society—its ultimate goal is to benefit farming families and producer associations in San Martín,” Vasquez and Robiglio concluded.

For more information, please contact Rocio Vasquez, Research Associate in Governance and Evidence-Based Engagement for CIFOR-ICRAF (R.Vasquez@cifor-icraf.org).

The SMART platform has been developed with support from SHARED and the Transformative Partnership Platform (TPP) on Agroecology, and thanks to funding from the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany (BMZ), and the Norwegion International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI-NORAD).