Protective afforestation in Ukraine has a long history and a rich tradition. Ukraine has a unique heritage of traditional windbreaks systems with a high environmental, economic and cultural potential.

Ukraine is a motherland of protective afforestation and windbreaks systems with it more than 200 years history. First contribution to the development of afforestation did V. Lomykovskyy (Gladun 2007). For the 1809-1837 he developed a system of protective forest plantations within that the territory of his estate in Poltava province. He created different types of protective plantations: windbreaks system at arable land; massive afforestation of the land unsuitable for agriculture; linear stands along roads, around gardens, settlements and other objects. As a result of these measures the yield of crops in the fields has been increased and become stable in comparison with yields of his neighboring landowners. The steppe afforestation became fulfillment at planning base at national scale at the second half of the nineteenth century (Gladun, Lokhmatov. 2007). Since the early 30th last century windbreaks was carried out on a regular basis by the state, regional and local projects (Bodrov 1974, Pylypenko. 2004).

The area of the country is 60.3 million hectares. According to the official data of 2016 agricultural lands in Ukraine share 70,8% of total area, including 53,9% of arable lands and forest lands occupy about 17,6%.

So Ukraine is a large agrarian country, where arable lands occupied 42 million ha or 71% of the territory. In recent years, the climate has changed to a hotter and temperature trend going north and west.

The total area of windbreaks is about 446 thousand ha and windbreaks cover is about 1,4% of arable land, that is double less then optimal index. They protect 13 million hectares of arable land and agricultural landscapes.

Ukraine has all necessary conditions for developing agroforestry systems with high ecological and economical potential of windbreaks. About 85% of the territory might be involved for sustainable agroforestry use.

Windbreaks as the main biological element of typical Ukrainian agroforestry systems have multifunctional use that provides economic and ecological benefits.

Economically windbreaks due to their positive effect on microclimate of agricultural field, increase yield of agricultural crops on 10-20% and with selective felling provide firewood. According to sustainable needs windbreaks can give economic and ecological benefits to organic farmlands.

Ecologically windbreaks provide much more benefits: increasing of organic environmental friendly production, improvement of soil fertility, climate changes mitigation, ecological corridors for ecological networks.

The windbreaks producing the highest ecologic and economic efficiency have to consist of autochthonous species: Quercus robur, Fraxinus excelsior, Tilia cordata, Acer platanoides, Corylus avellana, Sambucus nigra, Ribes aureum. The composition is available to form dense, sieve-looked and blown designs. The typical windbreak usually consists of 3-5-rows with total width 7.5-15.0 m. The seats placement for the typical scheme of the windbreak is 2.5-3.0 m between rows and 0.5×0.75 m spaces in lines.

Windbreaks as an integral part of organic farming. Unique organic agriculture farm “Agroecology”, which has been functioning since 39 years ago on the area of about 8 000 ha in Poltava region. Enterprise is certified as a manufacturer of organic crop production, according to standard which is equivalent to Council Regulation of the European Union. This enterprise doesn’t use herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, but uses manure, rotation of agricultural crops and every fourth yield leaves on the field and thus providing high-quality environmentally friendly products.

Using of fruit trees in composition of windbreaks provides fruit growing products and additionally fodder for fauna.

Also windbreaks as a linear forest stand provide a lot of ecological benefits in increasing of biodiversity, improvement of soil fertility, suitability of landscapes and of course can provide wood for example for heating.

Those aspects are useful for promotion of silvoarable agroforestry in Ukraine. Similar practice could be realized in Ukraine for silvopasture agroforestry with pasture protective lineal stands.

The next element of agroforestry in Ukraine is the water regulation shelterbelts which are located at the slopes from 3⁰ till 9⁰ by contours (horizontally).

Water regulation shelterbelts fulfil the dual functions: transfer of surface runoff to underground and soil protection from wind erosion.