Organic farming does not always lead to more biodiversity - report
A new report published in the scientific journal Nature Communications states that targeted action for biodiversity is needed for organic agriculture as well as conventional farming systems. An international team led by Agroscope in Switzerland including an Aberystwyth University research team led by IBERS scientist Dr Peter Dennis working on the BioBio project, investigated the contribution of organic farming to conserving farmland biodiversity. The study investigated farms in ten European and two African regions with different production systems. In each region, twelve to twenty farms were selected randomly, half of them certified organic for at least five years. No constraints were set on the other farms. The paper “Gains to species diversity in organically farmed fields are not propagated at the farm level” Schneider M.K. et al. (2014) is available online at http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140624/ncomms5151/full/ncomms5151.html . The work started in 2010 with all results collat...