DIVERSify

How can agriculture stay on the environmental agenda?

Extensive fields of monocultures are largely dependent on human intervention to resist biotic stresses such as weeds, pests and diseases, as well as environmental changes, and to achieve the desired productivity. At the same time, pesticides and the conversion of land into monocultures have become the main pressures undermining habitats and species that can provide essential ecosystem services.
There is growing pressure on farmers in Europe to produce food sustainably and with fewer inputs in order to minimise environmental damage. Increasing the diversity of cropping systems through practices such as intercropping (i.e. growing two or more crops in time and space) offers promising prospects for increasing and stabilising crop yields, ensuring greater resilience to environmental variability and changes in management, and supporting biodiverse agroecological communities.
There are many recognised crop combinations. However, their productivity and impact on ecological communities depend on local biotic, climatic and management conditions. However, the understanding of general patterns and local mechanisms of crop mixture ecology in Europe is limited.

The DIVERSify project aims to gain new ecological knowledge about crop combinations relevant for European agriculture. This is done through: i) comparative, multidisciplinary and multi-annual plot trials on crop and variety combinations and management types, ii) trial coordination in seven European countries covering six pedoclimatic regions, iii) compilation of a central database on plant traits (from growth and morphological data to ecological interactions in crop mixtures), iv) agronomic and ecological analyses based on the extensive database created.

Growing beyond the monoculture

By integrating analytical tools ranging from ecological to agronomic research, our analyses show productivity and biodiversity benefits of crop mixtures under contrasting management conditions (chemical input) across European sites. Crop mixtures produced more stable yields, saved more land and promoted greater biodiversity (especially of arthropods and spontaneous herbs) compared to monocultures, even under high-input conditions. The analyses also revealed evidence of ecological and productivity differences between sites, which provide valuable management options for the introduction of crop mixtures at the local level.