Diversified Farming Practices Can be Profitable and Boost Biodiversity in Nearly Half of the World

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Agriculture, like other sectors of the economy, is a profit-driven business. Simple cultivation systems such as monocultures have therefore become firmly established, because they promise higher returns. However, they are more susceptible to diseases and parasites, which can cause total crop failure among other things.

Diversified cultivation practices such as mixed cropping and crop rotation offer a sustainable alternative. It has already been scientifically proven that they can be profitable, perhaps even more so than monocultures. But under what conditions will these diversified farming practices turn a profit? And how can they help to intensify agricultural systems in a sustainable way?

[...] To this end, lead author Hannah Kamau, a doctoral student and member of Assistant Professor Lisa Biber-Freudenberger's working group in the Innovation and Technology for Sustainable Futures Transdisciplinary Research Area at the University of Bonn, considered more than 2,000 locations all over the world that were found to have profitable diversified farming practices as well as socio-economic conditions that determine profitability: Population density, access to local markets, electricity supply, gross domestic product per capita and governance.

Hannah Kamau then predicted which other regions of the world had similar conditions as the observed locations of profitable diversified farming practices. Her predictions suggest that the Global North and parts of the Global South that are close to urban centers are particularly suitable for profitable diversified farming practices. "Developed infrastructure played a key role in forecasting suitable areas," she explains.

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