Biodiversity in and with agriculture

BlühmischungIntegrated Farming Topic Sheet no 3 / 2015

Biodiversity – an underestimated treasure?
Biodiversity is commonly perceived as diversity of wild plant and animal species. However, in addition to all visible species of wild plants and animals, biodiversity also includes invisible and microscopic life – and thus also soil life – such as bacteria, fungi, algae and nematodes, to mention just a few. Furthermore, biodiversity includes all crops grown and all livestock kept on farms, the multitude of varieties within individual species, all different habitats as well as the multiple ecological services and interdependencies between species and habitats such as pollination for example. Biological diversity is a value as such… Read more