Agriculture Reference
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This certainly doesn't seem to be an integrated system, and the purchase
of off-farm compost may be necessary. I don't advocate a “bigger is better”
viewpoint, but it is clear how it could happen.
O
RGANIC LANDSCAPES
Aesthetic values are associated with farming, and many researchers have
carefully studied the various factors that make a rural landscape diverse and
colorful, visually coherent, and harmonious. Not surprisingly, organic farms
tend to provide better landscapes and local environments than conventional
farms.
Research investigated landscape features among seven organic and
eight conventional farms in the Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden (van
Mansvelt et al. 1998). The farm sizes ranged from 15 to 457 acres (6 to 185
ha) on farms that were established between 1947 and 1989, and utilized
between two and sixty workers. Interviews, farm visits, environmental
maps, photographs, and transects were all used in this analysis. A landscape
should balance order versus wild nature and simplification versus holism,
and this study found that organic farms exhibited more land use types,
natural elements, crop rotations, woody elements, and farmyard variation.
Diversity was greater on organic farms in terms of land use, crops, livestock,
trees, flora, sensory elements (colors, smells, sounds), and labor. Yet there
was coherence between the land use, local conditions, and spatial structures
like field division and fences. True organic landscapes should not rely only
on farm-level analysis; they must also include regional planning and coop-
eration. The authors suggest that a dozen or so neighboring organic farms
could work together to reach broader landscape goals of diversity and a sus-
tainable rural landscape. These are interesting ideas, but we must consider
the differences between the United States and European rural landscape in
terms of scale, farm size, and regional planning. The smaller land holdings
and higher acceptance of regional rural/urban planning in Europe make
the goal of integrated organic farm landscapes more attainable.
A special issue of the journal
Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Environment
(vol. 77, nos. 1-2, 2000) provided an overview of research accomplished
through the European Union's concerted action, entitled “The Landscape
and Nature Production Capacity of Organic-Sustainable Types of Agricul-
ture,” which was conducted between 1993 and 1997 (Stobbelaar and van
Mansvelt 2000). This work involved a multidisciplinary team of landscape
experts who visited rural areas, evaluated ecological and social factors, talked
to farmers, and sought to obtain an overview of various regions. They
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