Increasing diversity in crop production benefits biodiversity without compromising crop yields, according to an international study comparing 42,000 examples of diversified and simplified agricultural practices.
Increasing diversity in crop production benefits biodiversity without compromising crop yields, according to an international study comparing 42,000 examples of diversified and simplified agricultural practices.
Diversification includes practices such as growing multiple crops in rotation, planting flower strips, reducing tillage, adding organic amendments that enrich soil life, and establishing or restoring species-rich habitat in the landscape surrounding the crop field.
“The trend is that we’re simplifying major cropping systems worldwide,” says Giovanni Tamburini at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and lead author of the study. “We grow monoculture on enlarged fields in homogenized landscapes. According to our study diversification can reverse the negative impacts that we observe in simplified forms of cropping on the environment and on production itself.”
Read more at: The University of British Columbia
Increasing diversity in crop production benefits biodiversity without compromising crop yields, according to new research. (Photo Credit: Jamil Rhajiak / University of British Columbia, Communications & Marketing.)
