Intensive ecological farming?

Agricultural practices that diversify their crops, minimise synthetic inputs and promote the health of the environment have various names - ‘intensive ecological farming', ‘ecologically intensive farming' or ‘sustainable intensive agriculture'. But is it possible to have ecosystem health without reducing yield or productivity?

A long-term study13 from the USA compared conventional farming with approaches that had more diversity of planted crop species and relied mostly on organic inputs and ecosystem services for pest reduction. The study found greater soil quality and biodiversity in the more ecological farming strategies, but also found that grain yield and profit was at least equal to (or greater than) conventional farming.

Of course, this is just one example, but it indicates that working with soil biology to minimise disease outbreaks and improve nutrient availability, growing diverse gardens around fields that attract predators of plant pests14 and minimising synthetic inputs can allow farms to perform better environmentally and economically.