Diversity key to a new kind of agriculture

Research in the United States has found that diversification is key to agrifood systems best adapting to current environmental and social challenges.

According to the study, diversification focuses on improving outcomes for more people, pursuing multiple objectives and integrating resilience to future shocks and stressors.

Such processes can leverage natural technologies to enhance biodiversity, improve stability and protect ecosystems – all the while reducing the need for inputs such as fertiliser and pesticides and providing many positive outcomes for workers and consumers.

Although the research was carried out from an American point of view, its findings are relevant when applied to Scottish agrifood systems. The

Scottish Government is looking squarely at the agricultural sector as a site to deliver on its net zero 2045 goal.

Scotland’s unique diversity of land tenure contexts and strong community empowerment agenda offer powerful avenues towards landscape-level agricultural diversification, which may deliver the most equitable transition to a low-carbon farming policy agenda.

Many diversified systems are also far less capital intensive and such models.

As a result, they are more accessible to a wider range of farmers, including people with limited resources or on marginal lands.

The technical dimensions of on-farm diversification include methods such as intercropping, cover cropping, agroforestry, mixed farming, creating enabling condition for natural predators of crop pests, integration of tree species into productive farming operations, participatory plant breeding, poly cropping, and the production on farm fertiliser and composts.

■ Dr Adam Calo is a researcher in the Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences department at the James Hutton Institute.

BRIGHT IDEA: Sunflowers are planted as a cover crop following late-lifted carrots.