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Putting It All Together
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Growing rye between vineyard
rows suppresses weeds and attracts beneficial insects such as
lady beetles to this Monterey County, Calif., vineyard. Photo
by Chuck Ingels, Univ. of Calif. |
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Introduction
Agroecology — the science that underlies sustainable farming
— integrates the conservation of biodiversity with the production
of food. It promotes diversity which in turn sustains a farm’s
soil fertility, productivity and crop protection.
Innovative approaches that make agriculture both more sustainable
and more productive are flourishing around the world. While trade-offs
between agricultural productivity and biodiversity seem stark, exciting
opportunities for synergy arise when you adopt one or more of the
following strategies:
 Modify
your soil, water and vegetative resource management by limiting
external inputs and emphasizing organic matter accumulation, nutrient
recycling, conservation and diversity.
Replace
agrichemical applications with more resource-efficient methods
of managing nutrients and pest populations.
Mimic
natural ecosystems by adopting cover crops, polycultures and agroforestry
in diversified designs that include useful trees, shrubs and perennial
grasses.
Conserve
such reserves of biodiversity as vegetationally rich hedge-rows,
forest patches and fallow fields.
Develop
habitat networks that connect farms with surrounding ecosystems,
such as corridors that allow natural enemies and other beneficial
biota to circulate into fields.
Different farming systems and agricultural settings call for different
combinations of those key strategies. In intensive, larger-scale
cropping systems, eliminating pesticides and providing habitat diversity
around field borders and in corridors are likely to contribute most
substantially to biodiversity. On smaller-scale farms, organic management
— with crop rotations and diversified polyculture designs
— may be more appropriate and effective. Generalizing is impossible:
Every farm has its own particular features, and its own particular
promise.
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