Abstract
The long-term sustainability of crop production depends on the complex network of interactions and trade-offs between biotic, abiotic and economic components of agroecosystems. An integrated arable management system was designed to maintain yields, whilst enhancing biodiversity and minimising environmental impact. Management interventions included conservation tillage and organic matter incorporation for soil biophysical health, reduced crop protection inputs and integrated pest management strategies for enhanced biodiversity and ecosystem functions, and intercropping, cover cropping and under-sowing to achieve more sustainable nutrient management. This system was compared directly with standard commercial practice in a split-field experimental design over a six-year crop rotation. The effect of the cropping treatment was assessed according to the responses of a suite of indicators, which were used to parameterise a qualitative multi-attribute model. Scenarios were run to test whether the integrated cropping system achieved greater levels of overall sustainability relative to standard commercial practice. Overall sustainability was rated high for both integrated and conventional management of bean, barley and wheat crops. Winter oilseed crops scored medium for both cropping systems and potatoes scored very low under standard management but achieved a medium level of sustainability with integrated management. In general, high scores for environmental sustainability in integrated cropping systems were offset by low scores for economic sustainability relative to standard commercial practice. This case study demonstrates the value of a ‘whole cropping systems’ approach using qualitative multi-attribute modelling for the assessment of existing cropping systems and for predicting the likely impact of new management interventions on arable sustainability.
Highlights
Modern agriculture faces the challenge of simultaneously producing healthy food, adapting to climate change, protecting natural resources and conserving biodiversity [1]
The DEXi-Centre for Sustainable Cropping (CSC) was parameterised at the cropping systems level, which is the unit at which a management practice practicewas wasapplied appliedtotoa specific a specific crop
Agriculture research has contributed to the rapid intensification of crop production and has helped generate a significant increase in yields during the second half of the 20th century through primarily monodisciplinary studies [39]
Summary
Modern agriculture faces the challenge of simultaneously producing healthy food, adapting to climate change, protecting natural resources and conserving biodiversity [1]. There has been an increase in research and application of management interventions to try to address these multiple goals [4], the focus tends to be on specific components of the system tested in isolation (e.g., tillage practices, crop diversification, biodiversity conservation or pest and disease management) and there is little empirical evidence for their efficacy at a whole-system scale [5] This is problematic since management to improve one component could have a negative impact on a different part of the system. Aggregating a suite of indicators into a single index in this way provides a more comprehensive holistic assessment of sustainability than assessments based on individual indicators measured in isolation, due to the inter-dependence and potential functional redundancy between variables [9] This approach allows identification of trade-offs between elements within the system, e.g., where an expected positive effect of a change in management might be offset by a negative impact elsewhere. This case study demonstrates the value of a ‘whole systems’ approach to compare existing cropping systems and to predict the effect of new systems on arable ecosystem sustainability
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