Increasing

biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...

in agriculture may increase the sustainability of the farm and is called agroecological restoration. The biodiversity of farms is an aspect of

agroecology Agroecology (US: a-grō-ē-ˈkä-lə-jē) is an academic discipline that studies ecological processes applied to agricultural production systems. Bringing ecological principles to bear can suggest new management approaches in agroecosystems. Th ...

Background

Agriculture creates a conflict over the use of land between wildlife and humans.Macdonald, Key Topics in Conservation Biology, Chapter 16 Land use for agriculture has been a driving force in creating

biodiversity loss Biodiversity loss includes the worldwide extinction of different species, as well as the local reduction or loss of species in a certain habitat, resulting in a loss of biological diversity. The latter phenomenon can be temporary or permanent, de ...

. The increase in the amount of

pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or sw ...

and crop land over the last few hundred years has led to the rapid loss of natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s. The

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...

estimates that more than 40% of earth’s land surface is currently used for agriculture. Because so much land has been converted to agriculture,

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

is recognized as the driving force in biodiversity loss. A decline in farmland biodiversity can be traced to changes in farming practices and increased agricultural intensity. Nonetheless, according to the FAO, "biodiversity is just as important on farms and in fields as it is in deep river valleys or mountain cloud forests". The world has acknowledged the value of biodiversity in treaties in recent years, such as in the 1992

Convention on Biological Diversity The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), known informally as the Biodiversity Convention, is a multilateral treaty. The Convention has three main goals: the conservation of biological diversity (or biodiversity); the sustainable use of its ...

. Species face habitat fragmentation which can create a

genetic bottleneck A population bottleneck or genetic bottleneck is a sharp reduction in the size of a population due to environmental events such as famines, earthquakes, floods, fires, disease, and droughts; or human activities such as specicide, widespread violen ...

Monoculture In agriculture, monoculture is the practice of growing one crop species in a field at a time. Monoculture is widely used in intensive farming and in organic farming: both a 1,000-hectare/acre cornfield and a 10-ha/acre field of organic kale are ...

, the practice of producing a single crop on a given piece of land, including

crop rotation Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of different types of crops in the same area across a sequence of growing seasons. It reduces reliance on one set of nutrients, pest and weed pressure, and the probability of developing resistant ...

, produces optimum yields, but has implications for the biodiversity of farms.

Heterogeneity Homogeneity and heterogeneity are concepts often used in the sciences and statistics relating to the uniformity of a substance or organism. A material or image that is homogeneous is uniform in composition or character (i.e. color, shape, siz ...

, the diversity of the landscape, has been shown to be associated with species diversity. Butterfly abundance has been found to increase with heterogeneity, for example. Land that is not cropped, such as fallow land, grass margins in the spaces between different fields, and strips of scrub along field boundaries increases heterogeneity, and thus the biodiversity of a farm. The plants attract insects, will which attract certain species of birds, and those birds will attract their natural predators. The cover provided by the uncropped land allows the species to move across the landscape.6.^ Benton et al., 183–184 In Asian rice, one study showed crop diversification by growing flowering crops in strips beside rice fields could reduce pests so that insecticide spraying was reduced by 70%, yields increase by 5%, together resulting in an economic advantage of 7.5
(Gurr et al., 2016)

Notes

References

* Altieri, Miguel A. 1999. The ecological role of biodiversity in agroecosystems: Agriculture, Ecosystemsand Environment 74: 19–31. * Benton, Tim G., Vickery, Juliet A., Wilson, Jeremy D. 2003. Farmland biodiversity: is habitat heterogeneity the key? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 18: 182–188 * Dabbert, Stephan, 2002, Organic Agriculture and the Environment. OECD Publications Service * Fiedler, Anna K., Landis, Douglas A., Wratten, Steve D. 2008. Maximizing ecosystem services from conservation biological control: The role of habitat management. Biological Control 45: 254–271 * * Jackson, Dana L, Jackson, Laura L. 2002. The Farm as Natural Habitat. Island Press, Washington. * Leopold, Aldo. 1939. The Farmer as a Conservationist. Pages 255–265 in Flader, Susan L., Callicott, J. Baird, editors. The River of the Mother of God. University of Wisconsin Press. * Macdonald, David W., Service, Katrina. 2007. Key Topics in Conservation Biology. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford. * Schmidt, Martin H. Tscharntke, Teja. 2005. The role of perennial habitats for Central European farmland spiders. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 105: 235–242 * Shannon, D., Sen, A.M., Johnson, D.B. 2002. A comparative study of the microbiology of soils managed under organic and conventional regimes. Soil Use and Management 18: 274–283 * Zhang, Wei., Rickets, Taylor H., Kremen, Claire., Carney, Karen., Swinton, Scott M. 2007. Ecosystem services and dis-services to agriculture. Ecological Economics 64: 253–260 {{DEFAULTSORT:Agroecological Restoration Agroecology Biodiversity Ecological restoration Agriculture and the environment Environmental impact of agriculture Habitat Sustainable agriculture

Background

See also

Notes

References