Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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was more historical and quaint, whereas the other was more modern and
active. This reflects variations that exist among organic farms elsewhere.
Overall, the experts tended to focus on the objective, measurable aspects of
the two farms, since their training is ingrained. It may be better to obtain
subjective viewpoints from nonexperts, as they would be looking through
untrained lenses that may be more candid and revealing.
Applying the landscape checklist in Italy, two organic farms were com-
pared with their surrounding nonorganically managed landscapes in terms
of ecology, environment, and cultural geography (Rossi and Nota 2000).
This comparison discovered that organic farms do contribute to the rural
landscape with positive environmental (soil conservation) and ecological
(biological pest management) activities that are not found in the surround-
ing landscape.
Finally the ecology, social, and cultural criteria from the checklist were
used to evaluate two organic farms in Crete to compare them with the
surrounding region (Stobbelaar et al. 2000). While there was variation be-
tween the two farms, both performed well compared with the nonorganic
farms in the area. This study revealed, as did the above research in other EU
countries (Kuiper 2000), that the organic farm with smaller scattered fields
did not score as high on the aesthetic landscape criteria as the larger organic
farm, but this may be an issue of personal preference. It seems that, to some
extent, landscape beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. More notably, the
environmental and social quality components are quite high for all organic
farms compared with conventional farms in the vicinity.
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Bi
odiversity
Hundreds of years ago, the very act of farming took land out of forests
and led to more diversity in arable field plants, but modern agriculture
has arguably destroyed this vegetation diversity (van Elsen 2000). Organic
farming has the opportunity to bring back diverse, even endangered, field
plants (what modern agriculture calls “weeds”). Recent research on this
topic confirms that “organic cropping promotes weed species diversity”
(Hyvönen et al. 2003, 131). This diversity, however, cannot be fully accom-
plished by separating natural and cropped areas; saving or setting aside only
5 percent of the farms for “biotopes” in which nature can develop is not true
diversity. Rather, organic farms should strive to integrate biodiversity into
their farming methods as a whole to create a “web of biotopes” (van Elsen
2000, 108). Before we totally discredit this argument with the comment
“Who wants weeds anyway?” remember that these diverse field plants can
