Intro
According to the latest report of The UN Convention on Biological Diversity, until 2030, humanity has to conserve and enhance the sustainable use of biodiversity in agriculture for supporting the sustainability, productivity, and resilience of this ecosystem.
As we can see, therefore, an enormous biodiversity loss process is continued these days, but what does the term ‘’biodiversity’’ cover? Let’s get deeper into this definition and figure out how we can help.
Efforts to define biodiversity as a term have led to considering two components of it ― richness and evenness. The last element is responsible for the equitable distribution of species. Richness is described as the number of qualitative species.
In this article, we are focusing on crop species diversity, which is expected to increase species richness.
Crop diversification as a component of biodiversity
The richness of yields is started from the soils. Increasing crop diversity is the first step for obtaining a desirable soil structure. Combining various cultures that grow on the same land at different periods is beneficial by the difference of their root system. Therefore crop diversity through crop rotation gives every possible food resource, which saturates the soils and makes them healthier.
That’s why there are some doubts about relying on growing a few dominant sorts rather than maintaining crop diversity for healthier soils and richer harvests.
Impact of crop rotation
Crop rotation is one of the amazingly productive ways to protect soil from lack of nutrients and to replenish the lands with a new species. It allows the best use of the manufacturing area and maximization of output along with the following benefits:
― Crop rotation of various species of plants makes it possible to clean fields from pests, weeds, and plant diseases;
― Increases the yield and cut production costs;
― Can moderate climate changes by reducing emissions and carbon sequestration in the soil;
― Careful use of fields can prevent their depletion and suffer from declining yields as a result of monoculture;
― For different plants is essential a variety of trace elements contained in soil, and their amount used to be refilled. So, crop rotation allows restoring and maintaining balance in the natural environment.
The functionality of SoilMate uses Artificial Intelligence to carry out yield and soil analytics based on historical and current time data. These analytics provide wide knowledge about previous crop rotation activities and advice for future crop rotation and Biodiversity programs in a chosen area.
Benefits of Biodiversity to Agriculture
Profit from biodiversity to Agriculture is countless, as it plays an influential role in the ecosystem functioning. Crop biodiversity increases the land’s productivity, no matter how huge it is. The following list was made to single out the main advantages of conserving biodiversity in Agriculture.
― Biodiversity is a significant step to stability — the system’s ability to return to a balance. The faster it returns — the more stable it is. The goal of producing maximum sustained yields may result in a more stable system of reduced resilience.
― With the resilience model, soil quality and biodiversity are crucial. Healthy soil can contribute to overcoming external stresses such as drought and heavy rainfall, diseases, and other issues.
― When growing mixes of different crops or varieties, the system becomes more flexible to diseases and pests, yields are stabilized, and the sustainability of the system as entire increases.
― Even intense agriculture can get a profit from biodiversity management: increase species and at the same time maintain or boost productivity. Genetic diversity may be intentionally managed to raise crop yields, which has stopped because of growing monocultures.
― Biodiversity increases productivity and improves the stability of ecosystems. Maintaining biodiversity means obtaining a precise system view and approach.
To sum it up, the establishing of crop diversity utilizing crop rotation is an essential practice in Agriculture with a significant long-term impact.
By setting the accurate algorithms based on SoilMate analytics, the crops would be able to be enriched by all necessary goodness from the soils; soils, in turn, would get important nutrients obtained through a proper crop rotation system.
