Soil moisture conservation in a blown-sand region

What is it about?

In semiarid blown-sand areas under aridification water preservation is a particularly crucial task for agriculture. The international Diverfarming project (2017–2022) within the EU Horizon 2020 Program focused on the impacts of crop diversification and low-input practices in all pedoclimatic regions of Europe. In the three-year experiment conducted in the Pannonian region the impacts of intercropping asparagus with different herbs on some provisioning and regulating ecosystem services were evaluated in the Kiskunság sand regions. Relying on the findings based on a range of measured physical and chemical soil parameters and on crop yields and qualitative properties, advice was formulated for farmers. The message drawn from the experiment is somewhat ambiguous. The local farmer agrees that crop diversification improves soil quality, but he denies that it would directly influence farm competitiveness, which primarily depends on cultivation costs (such as fertilization, plant protection and labour). Further analyses are needed to prove the long-term benefits of diversification through enriching soil microbial life and the possible reduction of fertilizer use while water demand is kept at a low level and the same crop quality is ensured.

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Why is it important?

Diversification can be interpreted in a broader sense. Some ecologists are convinced that both wild and cultivated plants are sociable beings and prefer each other’s company to living alone (i.e. in monocropping) . Through the optimal selection of cover crops diversification may have socio-economic benefits as well and present itself as the best way of the exploitation of natural potentials. Diverfarming is intended to enhance the long-term resilience, sustainability and economic revenues of agriculture across the EU by assessing the real benefits and minimising the limitations, barriers and drawbacks of diversified cropping systems using low-input agricultural practices that are tailor-made to fit the unique characteristics of six EU pedoclimatic regions (the southern and northern Mediterranean, Atlantic, continental, Pannonian and boreal regions).