Abstract
This virtual issue comprises papers that address diversification for providing sustainable solutions at different scales from cropping and grassland to food systems. The authors investigated processes in case studies at the landscape scale where synergies and trade-offs between social and environmental objectives become the most tangible. Contributions from all continents highlighted regional specificities related to diversification and include research from natural and social sciences, with inter- and transdisciplinary approaches including synthesis of knowledge (reviews), empirical studies with experiments as well as assessments with interviews in case studies: Model-based design of crop diversification, the role of digitalization for achieving sustainability in the European context, ecological engineering for rice pest suppression in China, the role of cereal species mixtures in Ethiopian smallholder farmers, diversified planting in arid irrigation areas in northwestern China, integration of legumes in European and Canadian cropping systems, screening of native forage legumes for northern Swedish grassland systems, cropping system diversification of smallholder farmers in south-central Bangladesh, identification of how farmers imagine diversified landscapes in southern Idaho in the US, farm diversification affecting impacts from COVID-19 across Europe, the role of diversified farming in Mato Grosso Brazil, diversification and soil management measures in Germany, value chain formation for the scaling of crop diversification, and the design process with farmers and scientists for the transition toward legume-supported farming in Europe. A key finding from these examples is that agricultural intensification has led to the simplification of cropping systems and landscapes in terms of species diversity and ecosystem function. To instead move towards sustainable transformation, all system levels (i.e. from the plot, farm, landscape, governance and overall food systems) need to interact and reinforce each other for diversification to deliver the desired outcomes.
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
1 Editorial
In agricultural landscapes, spatial, temporal, and genetic diversifications of agricultural production systems are assumed to support greater ecosystem functioning, services, and biodiversity and thereby support the sustainability agenda (Beillouin et al. 2021). Diversification can reduce the dependency on synthetic inputs, lower the associated environmental impacts, and increase the resilience of crop production (Kremen et al. 2012; Tamburini et al. 2020) and of farming systems (Paas et al. 2021) as part of a transition to more sustainable agrifood systems (Messéan et al. 2021).
While a consistent framework and definition of diversification are lacking (Hufnagel et al. 2020), research on diversification is increasing (Alletto et al. 2022), and with these, documentation of the on-farm experiences with diversification (Reckling and Grosse 2022; Toffolini and Jeuffroy 2022). Diversification is understood to have agro-ecological, technological, environmental, organizational, governance, marketing and trade elements, and impacts. Promising approaches to diversification (Figure 1) include the following: (i) established and novel field arrangements, e.g., diverse rotations (Bowles et al. 2020), integration of legumes (Reckling et al. 2016), cover crops (Lamichhane and Alletto 2022), intercropping (Jensen et al. 2020), patch cropping (Donat et al. 2022), pixel cropping (Ditzler et al. 2021), and agroforestry (Teixeira et al. 2022); (ii) diversified farming systems, e.g., mixed crop-livestock (Ryschawy et al. 2012) and mixed livestock farming (Schanz et al. 2023), alternative social models, e.g., community supported agriculture (Vicente-Vicente et al. 2023), and care farming (Leck et al. 2014); (iii) diversified landscape systems such as rewetting of drained landscapes (Günther et al. 2020), and introduction of semi-natural habitats (Holland et al. 2017); and (iv) diversified value chains (Antier et al. 2022).
Diversified systems aim to reduce trade-offs between high productivity and sustainable use of external resources especially by reducing pesticide use (Jacquet et al. 2022), improving soil health (Zhang et al. 2020), and the provisioning of ecosystem services (Tamburini et al. 2020), including social and cultural values. Diversification is also applied to improve economic and livelihood resilience against external shocks (Meuwissen et al. 2019) and climate risk especially under low-input traditional farming systems (Nelson et al. 2022).
This virtual issue comprises papers that address diversification for providing sustainable solutions at different scales from cropping and grassland to food systems. The authors investigated processes in case studies at the landscape scale where synergies and trade-offs between social and environmental objectives become the most tangible. Contributions include research from the natural and social sciences, with inter- and transdisciplinary approaches including synthesis of knowledge (reviews), empirical studies with experiments, and assessments with interviews in case studies:
Hernández-Ochoa et al. (2022) review the model-based design of crop diversification and find that it is necessary to improve the representation of crop interactions, the inclusion of more crops, soil legacy effects, and biodiversity to assess new field arrangements. MacPherson et al. (2022) review the role of digitalization and identify options for achieving sustainability goals in future scenarios for agricultural systems in the German and European contexts. Zhu et al. (2022) review the research on ecological engineering for rice pest suppression in China, characterize the adoption including many practical examples and highlight priorities for future research. McAlvay et al. (2022) review ethnohistorical, agronomic, and ecological literature on maslins (cereal species mixtures) in two case studies from Ethiopian smallholder farmers and identify these systems as an agroecological intensification and climate adaptation strategy.
Gou et al. (2022) identify diversified planting in arid irrigation areas to improve the sustainability of cropping systems using experiments in northwestern China. Reckling et al. (2022) analyze long-term field experiments from Sweden, Scotland, and France and find that diversification with legumes improves the performance of cereals in European cropping systems. Khakbazan et al. (2022) assess diverse crop rotations with pulses for improving the systems’ economic profitability providing evidence from two 4-year cycles of rotation experiments in Canada. Micke and Parsons (2022) screen wild and native forage legumes using herbarium records for inclusion in northern Swedish grassland agricultural systems.
Emran et al. (2022) apply multi-criteria analysis to assess the impact of cropping system diversification on productivity and resource use efficiency of smallholder farmers in south-central Bangladesh. Spangler et al. (2022) identify what farmers are doing to manage crop diversity (the present) and how they imagine alternative landscapes (the imaginary) using interviews focused on the Idaho’s Magic Valley of southern Idaho in the USA. Helfenstein et al. (2022) find specialized and intensive farms to be more likely to perceive negative impacts from COVID-19 compared to more diverse farms using farmer surveys in 15 case studies across Europe. Dos Reis et al. (2023) develop fuzzy logic indicators for the assessment of farming sustainability strategies in a tropical agricultural frontier applying it to assess the performance of diversified farming systems in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Strauss et al. (2023) identify diversification as a key element in the most important sustainable soil management measures as assessed through stakeholder recommendations in Germany. Weituschat et al. (2023) explore the role of value chain formation in the scaling of crop diversification using an abductive research strategy with case studies in the north of Italy and the Netherlands. Notz et al. (2023) describe a design process with scientists and advisors in 17 case studies in nine European countries and identify trade-offs and synergies for the transition toward legume-supported farming.
The virtual issue was initiated at the “Landscape 2021” conference with the theme “Diversity for Sustainable and Resilient Agriculture.” The conference was organized by the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) and attracted more than 400 participants from 42 countries. Across scales and system levels, from cropping systems to farming, landscape, governance, and food systems, diversification strategies were presented and their impact on ecosystem services and resource efficiency analyzed (Figure 2). Contributions from all continents highlighted regional specificities. A key finding emerged that all system levels need to interact and reinforce each other for diversification to be tangible and actually deliver a cornerstone toward sustainable transformation.
We conclude that a key consequence of (past) agricultural intensification has led to simplifications of cropping systems and landscapes. There is substantial evidence that diversification has the potential to improve both the agronomic and economic resilience of farming systems as well as the environmental resilience of landscapes. Current policies, e.g., the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), support the diversification of crop production to a limited extent but do not yet support the resilience of farming systems. A concerted effort to redesign agricultural landscapes is required to halt the loss of biodiversity and to improve delivery of ecosystem services. Promising diversification solutions are subject to local geophysical, agronomic, and socio-economic contexts, and that is why there is a high variation in both approaches to and effects of diversification across studies. Despite this diversity we see “a window of opportunity” for diversification because in the face of climate change and other crises, farmers are ready for change, even at the cost of (short-term) profit loss. New management tools and digitalization may support the transformation toward diversified, sustainable agricultural systems across scales, but traditional knowledge on the local context seems equally important. Consumption changes, e.g., toward more plant-protein-based diets can trigger production changes toward diversification providing a push-pull effect. An integrated view can be the guiding principle for improving agricultural diversification considering ecological, social, and economic perspectives. This issue adds evidence for making diversification an important step toward the transformation of more sustainable and resilient agriculture. Action at all levels is needed, i.e., crop and grassland, farming, landscape governance, food systems, and across scales to utilize this potential.
Data availability
Not applicable
Code availability
Not applicable
References
Alletto L, Celette F, Drexler D, Plaza-Bonilla D, Reckling M (2022) Editorial: crop diversification, a key pillar for the agroecological transition. Front Agron 4:950822. https://doi.org/10.3389/fagro.2022.950822
Antier C, Baret PV, Rossing W, Villa A, Fares M, Viguier L, Messéan A (2022) How to support the development of crop diversification? The importance of an approach at the value chain level. Université catholique de Louvain (UC). doi:https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6382721
Beillouin D, Ben-Ari T, Malézieux E, Seufert V, Makowski D (2021) Positive but variable effects of crop diversification on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Glob Change Biol 27(19):4697–4710. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15747
Bowles TM, Mooshammer M, Socolar Y, Calderón F, Cavigelli MA, Culman SW, Deen W, Drury CF, Garcia y Garcia A, Gaudin ACM, Harkcom WS, Lehman RM, Osborne SL, Robertson GP, Salerno J, Schmer MR, Strock J, Grandy AS (2020) Long-term evidence shows that crop-rotation diversification increases agricultural resilience to adverse growing conditions in North America. One Earth 2(3):284–293. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.02.007
Ditzler L, Apeldoorn DFv, Schulte RPO, Tittonell P, Rossing WAH (2021) Redefining the field to mobilize three-dimensional diversity and ecosystem services on the arable farm. Eur J Agron 122:126197. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eja.2020.126197
Donat M, Geistert J, Grahmann K, Bloch R, Bellingrath-Kimura SD (2022) Patch cropping- a new methodological approach to determine new field arrangements that increase the multifunctionality of agricultural landscapes. Comput Electron Agric 197:106894. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2022.106894
Dos Reis JC, Rodrigues GS, de Barros I, de Aragão Ribeiro Rodrigues R, Garrett RD, Valentim JF, Kamoi MYT, Michetti M, Wruck FJ, Rodrigues-Filho S (2023) Fuzzy logic indicators for the assessment of farming sustainability strategies in a tropical agricultural frontier. Agron Sustain Dev 43(1):8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00858-5
Emran S-A, Krupnik TJ, Aravindakshan S, Kumar V, Pittelkow CM (2022) Impact of cropping system diversification on productivity and resource use efficiencies of smallholder farmers in south-central Bangladesh: a multi-criteria analysis. Agron Sustain Dev 42(4):78. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00795-3
Gou Z, Yin W, Asibi AE, Fan Z, Chai Q, Cao W (2022) Improving the sustainability of cropping systems via diversified planting in arid irrigation areas. Agron Sustain Dev 42(5):88. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00823-2
Günther A, Barthelmes A, Huth V, Joosten H, Jurasinski G, Koebsch F, Couwenberg J (2020) Prompt rewetting of drained peatlands reduces climate warming despite methane emissions. Nat Commun 11(1):1644. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15499-z
Helfenstein J, Bürgi M, Debonne N, Dimopoulos T, Diogo V, Dramstad W, Edlinger A, Garcia-Martin M, Hernik J, Kizos T, Lausch A, Levers C, Mohr F, Moreno G, Pazur R, Siegrist M, Swart R, Thenail C, Verburg PH, Williams TG, Zarina A, Herzog F (2022) Farmer surveys in Europe suggest that specialized, intensive farms were more likely to perceive negative impacts from COVID-19. Agron Sustain Dev 42(5):84. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00820-5
Hernández-Ochoa IM, Gaiser T, Kersebaum K-C, Webber H, Seidel SJ, Grahmann K, Ewert F (2022) Model-based design of crop diversification through new field arrangements in spatially heterogeneous landscapes A Review. Agron Sustain Dev 42(4):74. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00805-4
Holland JM, Douma JC, Crowley L, James L, Kor L, Stevenson DRW, Smith BM (2017) Semi-natural habitats support biological control, pollination and soil conservation in Europe A Review. Agron Sustain Dev 37(4):31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-017-0434-x
Hufnagel J, Reckling M, Ewert F (2020) Diverse approaches to crop diversification in agricultural research A Review. Agron Sustain Dev 40(2):14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-020-00617-4
Jacquet F, Jeuffroy M-H, Jouan J, Le Cadre E, Litrico I, Malausa T, Reboud X, Huyghe C (2022) Pesticide-free agriculture as a new paradigm for research. Agron Sustain Dev 42(1):8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-021-00742-8
Jensen ES, Carlsson G, Hauggaard-Nielsen H (2020) Intercropping of grain legumes and cereals improves the use of soil N resources and reduces the requirement for synthetic fertilizer N: a global-scale analysis. Agron Sustain Dev 40(1):5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-020-0607-x
Khakbazan M, Liu K, Bandara M, Huang J, Gan Y (2022) Pulse-included diverse crop rotations improved the systems economic profitability: evidenced in two 4-year cycles of rotation experiments. Agron Sustain Dev 42(5):103. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00831-2
Kremen C, Iles A, Bacon C (2012) Diversified farming systems: an agroecological, systems-based alternative to modern industrial agriculture. Ecol Soc 17(4):44. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-05103-170444
Lamichhane JR, Alletto L (2022) Ecosystem services of cover crops: a research roadmap. Trends Plant Sci. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2022.03.014
Leck C, Evans N, Upton D (2014) Agriculture – Who cares? An investigation of ‘care farming’ in the UK. J Rural Stud 34:313–325. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2014.01.012
MacPherson J, Voglhuber-Slavinsky A, Olbrisch M, Schöbel P, Dönitz E, Mouratiadou I, Helming K (2022) Future agricultural systems and the role of digitalization for achieving sustainability goals A Review. Agron Sustain Dev 42(4):70. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00792-6
McAlvay AC, DiPaola A, D’Andrea AC, Ruelle ML, Mosulishvili M, Halstead P, Power AG (2022) Cereal species mixtures: an ancient practice with potential for climate resilience A Review. Agron Sustain Dev 42(5):100. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00832-1
Messéan A, Viguier L, Paresys L, Aubertot J-N, Canali S, Iannetta PJ, Eric KA, Keillor B, Kemper L, Muel F, Pancino B, Stilmant D, Watson C, Willer H, Zornoza R (2021) Enabling crop diversification to support transitions towards more sustainable European agrifood systems. Front Agric Sci Eng 8(3):474–480
Meuwissen MPM, Feindt PH, Spiegel A, Termeer CJAM, Mathijs E, Mey Yd, Finger R, Balmann A, Wauters E, Urquhart J, Vigani M, Zawalińska K, Herrera H, Nicholas-Davies P, Hansson H, Paas W, Slijper T, Coopmans I, Vroege W, Ciechomska A, Accatino F, Kopainsky B, Poortvliet PM, Candel JJL, Maye D, Severini S, Senni S, Soriano B, Lagerkvist C-J, Peneva M, Gavrilescu C, Reidsma P (2019) A framework to assess the resilience of farming systems. Agric Sys 176:102656. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2019.102656
Micke B, Parsons D (2022) Using botanical resources to select wild forage legumes for domestication in temperate grassland agricultural systems. Agron Sustain Dev 43(1):1. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00853-w
Nelson WCD, Hoffmann MP, Vadez V, Rötter RP, Koch M, Whitbread AM (2022) Can intercropping be an adaptation to drought? A model-based analysis for pearl millet–cowpea. J Agron Crop Sci 208(6):910–927. https://doi.org/10.1111/jac.12552
Notz I, Topp CFE, Schuler J, Alves S, Gallardo LA, Dauber J, Haase T, Hargreaves PR, Hennessy M, Iantcheva A, Jeanneret P, Kay S, Recknagel J, Rittler L, Vasiljević M, Watson CA, Reckling M (2023) Transition to legume-supported farming in Europe through redesigning cropping systems. Agron Sustain Dev 43(1):12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00861-w
Paas W, Coopmans I, Severini S, van Ittersum MK, Meuwissen MPM, Reidsma P (2021) Participatory assessment of sustainability and resilience of three specialized farming systems. Ecol Soc 26(2):2. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-12200-260202
Reckling M, Bergkvist G, Watson CA, Stoddard FL, Zander PM, Walker R, Pristeri A, Toncea I, Bachinger J (2016) Trade-offs between economic and environmental impacts of introducing legumes into cropping systems. Front Plant Sci 7:669. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2016.00669
Reckling M, Albertsson J, Vermue A, Carlsson G, Watson CA, Justes E, Bergkvist G, Jensen ES, Topp CFE (2022) Diversification improves the performance of cereals in European cropping systems. Agron Sustain Dev 42(6):118. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00850-z
Reckling M, Grosse M (2022) On-farm research to diversify organic farming systems. Org Farm 8(1). doi:https://doi.org/10.12924/of2022.08010001
Ryschawy J, Choisis N, Choisis JP, Joannon A, Gibon A (2012) Mixed crop-livestock systems: an economic and environmental-friendly way of farming? Animal 6(10):1722–1730. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1751731112000675
Schanz L, Oehen B, Benoit M, Bernes G, Magne M-A, Martin G, Winckler C (2023) High work satisfaction despite high workload among European organic mixed livestock farmers: a mixed-method approach. Agron Sustain Dev 43(1):4. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00852-x
Spangler K, Burchfield EK, Radel C, Jackson-Smith D, Johnson R (2022) Crop diversification in Idaho’s Magic Valley: the present and the imaginary. Agron Sustain Dev 42(5):99. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00833-0
Strauss V, Paul C, Dönmez C, Löbmann M, Helming K (2023) Sustainable soil management measures: a synthesis of stakeholder recommendations. Agron Sustain Dev 43(1):17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00864-7
Tamburini G, Bommarco R, Wanger TC, Kremen C, Heijden MGAvd, Liebman M, Hallin S (2020) Agricultural diversification promotes multiple ecosystem services without compromising yield. Science Advances 6(45):eaba1715. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aba1715
Teixeira HM, Schulte RPO, Anten NPR, Bosco LC, Baartman JEM, Moinet GYK, Reidsma P (2022) How to quantify the impacts of diversification on sustainability? A review of indicators in coffee systems. Agron Sustain Dev 42(4):62. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00785-5
Toffolini Q, Jeuffroy M-H (2022) On-farm experimentation practices and associated farmer-researcher relationships: a systematic literature review. Agron Sustain Dev 42(6):114. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00845-w
Vicente-Vicente JL, Borderieux J, Martens K, González-Rosado M, Walthall B (2023) Scaling agroecology for food system transformation in metropolitan areas: Agroecological characterization and role of knowledge in community-supported agriculture farms connected to a food hub in Berlin, Germany. Agroecol Sustain Food Syst 47:1–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/21683565.2023.2187003
Weituschat CS, Pascucci S, Materia VC, Blasi E (2023) Understanding the role of value chain formation in the scaling of crop diversification. Agron Sustain Dev 43(2):25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-023-00866-z
Zhang J, Van der Heijden MGA, Zhang F, Bender SF (2020) Soil biodiversity and crop diversification are vital components of healthy soils and agricultural sustainability. Front Agr Sci Eng 7(3):236–242. https://doi.org/10.15302/j-fase-2020336
Zhu P, Zheng X, Johnson AC, Chen G, Xu H, Zhang F, Yao X, Heong K, Lu Z, Gurr GM (2022) Ecological engineering for rice pest suppression in China A Review. Agron Sustain Dev 42(4):69. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00800-9
Acknowledgements
This special issue was initiated at the “Landscape 2021” conference with the theme “Diversity for Sustainable and Resilient Agriculture.” We are grateful for the great support of the Scientific and Organizing Committee, the session chairs and the participants for making the conference a success.
Funding
Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. MR and CW were supported by the SusCrop ERA-NET project LegumeGap (grant 031B0807B). MR was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)–420661662 and supported by the PRIMA project Biodiversify (grant 01DH20014). AW was supported by the CGIAR initiatives on Mixed Farming Systems and Diversification in East and Southern Africa. KH was supported by the Digital Agriculture Knowledge and Information System (DAKIS) Project (grant 031B0729A), financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The Landscape 2021 Conference was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), and by the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Conceptualization, MR, CW, AW, and KH; writing—original draft, MR and KH; review and editing, MR, CW, AW, and KH.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no competing interests.
Ethics approval
Not applicable
Consent to participate
Not applicable
Consent for publication
Not applicable
Additional information
Publisher's note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
This article is published under an open access license. Please check the 'Copyright Information' section either on this page or in the PDF for details of this license and what re-use is permitted. If your intended use exceeds what is permitted by the license or if you are unable to locate the licence and re-use information, please contact the Rights and Permissions team.
About this article
Cite this article
Reckling, M., Watson, C.A., Whitbread, A. et al. Diversification for sustainable and resilient agricultural landscape systems. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 43, 44 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-023-00898-5
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-023-00898-5