Surveying On-Farm Biodiversity

Agricultural landscapes and farms are home to a wide diversity of domesticated and wild species, including crops, insects, plants, birds, and mammals. They are also made up of a large number of different habitats such as farm fields, field margins, hedgerows, grasslands, forests, wetlands, and aquatic ecosystems. All of these species and ecosystems make up agrobiodiversity – the different types of life present on a farm or in an agricultural area. With biodiversity loss a major global issue, ensuring that agrobiodiversity is conserved in the almost 50% of the Earth’s ice-free land that is utilized for crop or livestock production is a critical issue and farmers and landowners have an important role to play.

Agrobiodiversity supports food production in a large number of ways, from increasing soil formation and retention to reducing pest populations and providing pollination. Importantly, how a farm is managed influences the agrobiodiversity present on farm, which in turn has positive or negative (or both) impacts on crops, livestock, and farm production. For farmers and landowners, measuring and monitoring this agrobiodiversity can help inform farm management for things like pests and weeds, track changes in farm conditions to help them be more resilient and adaptable, and in some cases help landowners apply for biodiversity conservation grants. In addition, this information and data can help scientists understand where and how agrobiodiversity is changing.