"By diversifying cropping systems at several scales there is potential to decrease reliance on inputs, provide resilience to abiotic and biotic stress, enhance plant, microbe, and animal biodiversity, and mitigate against climate change by using less fuel and storing more carbon in soils"

A Hutton scientific study summarising six years of agricultural research undertaken for the Scottish Government highlights the impact of the use of ecological principles in agriculture on sustainability, resilience, and provision of ecosystem functions.

The synthesis demonstrates that diversification of agricultural systems can enhance a wide range of important ecosystem functions including, critically, greater resilience to abiotic and biotic stress.

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This article was originally posted by The James Hutton Institute