Italian researchers from the Horizon 2020 Diverfarming project have conducted a consultation on the benefits and barriers to the adoption of multiple cropping systems and sustainable management practices identified as suitable for improving diversification in the country’s cereal crops.
The consultation questioned more than 50 actors in the agrifood system, including the farming community, agricultural technicians, public administrations and associations, “on their practical knowledge of current diversification strategies as an alternative to agricultural intensification systems”.
Researchers from three Italian organisations sought to identify “the most important agri-environmental issues, priority actions, the most appropriate farming practices and their effectiveness and the main barriers to adopting these practices and performed an analysis of these perceptions using a multicriteria analysis method (it is used to issue a comparative judgment between heterogeneous projects or measures).”
They report: “With this the main problem that the players identified was the fear of losing profitability and the limited training in intercropping of many farmers. For the interested parties, a very important strength is that the alternatives chosen for rotations of cereal and tomato and multiple cropping (the introduction of legumes in the rotation) are already grown as monocrops and are adapted to the local soil and climate conditions, as well as being crops that are widely known by the growers.
“The people surveyed considered that the practices of minimal tillage, maintaining plant cover, rotations, the application of manure and the use of green manure to be adequate and effective. These are the strategies of sustainable management that the project proposes and are not costly, do not require major investments in machinery nor highly skilled farmers, which suggests significant potential for their introduction.
“Training farmers in these techniques and in managing diversifications would be one of the solutions to the barrier of the lack of training in intercropping, whilst the integration of this knowledge in public policies to support the adoption of sustainable farming practices may be a strategy to increase their acceptance.”
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