by Pavlo Ardanov
Do you practice, research or study ecologically intensive agriculture, where the farm needs in nutrient turnover and biocontrol are primarily met by diversifying cultivated and wild plants and animals? Are you motivated to reduce farm inputs and pollution while increasing economic and environmental resilience, sustaining resident biodiversity and increasing carbon sequestration?
If yes – we invite you to contribute to the research project of the Agricultural Sustainability Institute, University of California, Davis and the NGO “Permaculture in Ukraine” to co-develop an algorithm and SOFTWARE FOR DESIGNING CROP POLYCULTURES (simultaneous cultivation of several crops on the same land), and POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS TO PROMOTE BIODIVERSITY-BASED AGRICULTURE. And also the first polyculture system – DIVERSIFIED TREE NUT AND FRUIT ORCHARD, with a variety of cover crops, other commercial crops, and/or fodder crops integrated with livestock.
How to contribute?
- Fill in survey for HORTICULTURISTS if you are large or small-scale producer of tree nut and fruit crops, permaculture designer or researcher interested in integrating other crops, including cover crops, and/or livestock into the orchard.
- Fill in survey for GROWERS if you have experience or interest in integrating additional crops and livestock into existing system.
- Fill in survey for RESEARCHERS, AGRICULTURE EXTENSION SPECIALISTS AND POLICY MAKERS if you are professionally working with ecologically intensive agriculture, carbon farming, and biodiversity improvement.
- Learn from experience collected at the international research and practice conference “Polycultures and Permaculture” 30.01-08.20.2020.
- Subscribe to our Facebook page Polycultures and Permaculture to share and learn best practices on crop diversification from academics and farmers.
Design and implementation of efficient crop polycultures requires collaboration between farmers, researchers, and policy makers. Resilient, resource efficient and diversified production systems will help farmers to overcome the forthcoming economic crisis. Please, spend 10 – 15 minutes to share your experience and vision. Together we can help growers to design future of agriculture systems – knowledge intensive and wise, productive and nature friendly.
P.S. if you are interested to know more about already available databases and algorithms for designing plant polycultures – see these videos.
