Farming methods that support nature improve both biodiversity and crop yields but more extensive measures may require increased government subsidies to become as profitable as conventional intensive agriculture. That is the finding of the first comprehensive on-farm trials of their kind in the UK, which were led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) and Rothamsted Research.
This four-year study across 17 conventional, commercial farms in southern England not only trialled various agroecological methods but also for the first time the financial viability for businesses.
It showed that incorporating nature-friendly practices within farming agroecology increases biodiversity, pollination by bees, natural pest control and numbers of earthworms. This boosted crop yield, but the cost of creating the habitats and the loss of some productive land on which to create these habitats affected the profitability of these systems. New subsidies may therefore be required to support farms’ transition to sustainable agriculture.
Farming methods that support nature improve both biodiversity and crop yields but more extensive measures may require increased government subsidies to become as profitable as conventional intensive agriculture. That is the finding of the first comprehensive on-farm trials of their kind in the UK, which were led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) and Rothamsted Research.
This four-year study across 17 conventional, commercial farms in southern England not only trialled various agroecological methods but also – for the first time – the financial viability for businesses.
It showed that incorporating nature-friendly practices within farming – agroecology – increases biodiversity, pollination by bees, natural pest control and numbers of earthworms. This boosted crop yield, but the cost of creating the habitats and the loss of some productive land on which to create these habitats affected the profitability of these systems. New subsidies may therefore be required to support farms’ transition to sustainable agriculture.
Trialling agroecological methods
Scientists at UKCEH and Rothamsted worked with farmers to co-develop the trials using simple management practices within three different agricultural systems on each of the farms:
1) Business-as-usual – typical intensive agriculture and no nature-friendly farming.
2) An ’enhanced’ ecological farming system which involved planting wildflower field margins to provide habitat for bees, beetles and spiders, and sowing overwinter cover crops to capture carbon and retain nutrients in the soil.
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