Agricultural Practices and Their Impact on Agrobiodiversity: From Field to Landscape

Agriculture is not just a food production system – it is the single most powerful force shaping biodiversity on Earth. Covering over half of the world’s habitable land, farming determines which species thrive and which disappear across vast stretches of the planet. Yet, when we talk about biodiversity conservation, the conversation often centres on protecting pristine forests or marine reserves, overlooking the fact that farmlands themselves harbour rich and ecologically important communities of plants, animals, and microorganisms. Understanding how agricultural practices affect agrobiodiversity – from the individual field to the broader landscape – is essential for anyone concerned about the future of food and nature.

Agriculture as the dominant force shaping biodiversity 🔗

Agriculture’s footprint on the planet is enormous. Roughly half of the world’s habitable land is currently used for farming, and in many countries the proportion is much higher. In India, agricultural land accounts for approximately 60% of the total land area, while countries like England and France dedicate similarly large shares to farming. This means that what happens on farms doesn’t just affect food supply – it fundamentally determines biodiversity outcomes at national and even continental scales.

Research published in npj Biodiversity identifies agriculture as the primary driver of biodiversity loss globally, operating through both the intensification of existing farmland and the expansion of agriculture into natural ecosystems. Agriculture is responsible for an estimated 80% of all global land-use changes, primarily through conversion of natural habitats for crops and pastures. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), roughly half of all habitable land on Earth is now under agriculture, and these practices have degraded up to 40% of the world’s land.

But here’s what makes this issue more nuanced than it first appears: agricultural landscapes are not barren wastelands. Human-managed farmlands can and do support species diversities that rival natural ecosystems. Many threatened species now depend on agricultural habitats for their survival, particularly in regions where farming has shaped the landscape for thousands of years. In Europe, for instance, certain bird species, wildflowers, and insect communities are closely tied to traditional farming practices. If biodiversity conservation focuses only on the small fraction of remaining natural habitats (sometimes as little as 5% of a country’s land area), it will miss the enormous potential – and responsibility – that agricultural landscapes carry.

Historical agricultural landscapes and their biodiversity value 🔗

In many parts of Europe and Asia, agricultural regions have been shaped by human activity for over 2,000 years. Over this long period, wild species have adapted to these human-modified environments, creating surprisingly species-rich communities. Traditional farming methods – small fields, mixed cropping, seasonal fallows, hedgerows, and field margins – created a mosaic of micro-habitats that supported diverse organisms.

This co-evolution between farming and wildlife is significant. Many species that we now consider “wild” are, in fact, deeply dependent on the specific conditions created by agriculture. Farmland birds like skylarks and lapwings in Europe, or certain butterfly species found along field margins, owe their existence to agricultural landscapes. Remove farming from these areas, and these species would likely disappear along with their habitats.

However, the story is not entirely positive. Continued human population growth and the expansion of farmland into forests, wetlands, and grasslands have destroyed vast areas of natural habitat. At the same time, the intensification of agriculture within existing farmlands – through mechanisation, monocultures, and chemical inputs – has degraded the biodiversity value of these landscapes. The result is a double squeeze: natural habitats shrink from the outside, while the quality of agricultural habitats declines from within.

Why agricultural biodiversity matters for policymakers 🔗

Understanding agriculture’s effects on biodiversity is not just an academic exercise. It provides a critical knowledge framework for stakeholders and policymakers who must balance food production with environmental stewardship. A perspective published in Science notes that the decline of agricultural biodiversity has direct consequences for human health, with less than 200 species currently contributing to global food supplies and low dietary diversity now linked to millions of premature deaths annually. Policymakers need data-driven insights into how specific farming practices affect specific groups of organisms to design effective agri-environmental programmes.

The complex network of agricultural influences on biodiversity 🔗

Agriculture doesn’t affect biodiversity through a single mechanism. Instead, it operates through a complex network of influences at multiple scales – from the individual plot to the broader landscape and region.

Plot-level effects: what happens in the field 🔗

At the field level, agricultural practices directly shape the environmental conditions that organisms experience. Tillage, for example, physically disrupts soil habitats. A systematic review of 331 studies found that reduced tillage and no-tillage practices consistently benefit earthworm populations by reducing disturbance to their habitat, while intensive ploughing significantly decreases their abundance and biomass. Similarly, pesticide use has broadly negative effects on arthropods like bees and beetles, with the absence of insecticides and fungicides identified as “no regret” practices that enhance biodiversity across multiple species groups without harming any specific taxonomic group.

Fertilisation practices also play a major role, though their effects are more complex. Organic fertilisers tend to benefit soil bacteria, while the complete absence of fertilisation can sometimes have negative effects on certain organisms. Chemical inputs such as synthetic nitrogen not only affect soil biology directly but also contribute to water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, creating cascading effects on biodiversity well beyond the farm boundary.

Landscape-level effects: the bigger picture 🔗

Beyond the individual field, the arrangement and diversity of different land-use types across a landscape significantly influence biodiversity patterns. An agricultural landscape isn’t just a collection of crop fields – it includes field margins, hedgerows, woodlands, ponds, ditches, and semi-natural grasslands. The diversity of these elements, and how they’re arranged spatially, creates what ecologists call landscape heterogeneity.

A comprehensive meta-analysis published in PNAS, covering 1,134 effect sizes from 157 peer-reviewed articles, found that increasing landscape complexity through changes in composition, configuration, or heterogeneity has a significant positive effect on biodiversity. Complex landscapes with more semi-natural habitat patches, hedgerows, and varied land cover types hosted substantially higher species richness and abundance for vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants compared to simpler landscapes.

Regional-level diversity 🔗

At the broadest scale, the interplay between agricultural and natural ecosystems within a region shapes overall biodiversity patterns. A region that contains a mix of farming systems – some intensive, some extensive – alongside forests, wetlands, and other natural habitats will generally support higher biodiversity than one dominated entirely by a single type of land use. This regional diversity also underpins ecosystem functionality, ensuring that services like pollination, pest control, and water purification continue to operate effectively.

Landscape complexity: composition, configuration, and heterogeneity 🔗

Landscape complexity is a multidimensional concept. Ecologists typically break it down into three components, each of which affects biodiversity differently.

Compositional heterogeneity 🔗

This refers to the variety of different land-cover types present in a landscape – for example, how many different crop types, semi-natural habitats, and other land uses exist within a given area. A global meta-analysis published in Ecology Letters, covering 6,397 fields across 122 studies, found consistently positive effects of both crop and landscape compositional heterogeneity on biodiversity. Predators (natural enemies of pests) particularly benefit from greater compositional diversity, as it provides a wider range of prey and habitat resources.

Configurational heterogeneity 🔗

Configuration refers to how land-cover patches are arranged spatially – their size, shape, connectivity, and the amount of edge habitat between them. Smaller field sizes, longer field margins, and greater connectivity between habitat patches all increase configurational complexity. Pollinators, in particular, benefit from this type of heterogeneity because it improves their ability to move between nesting sites and foraging areas. The PNAS meta-analysis noted that restoring and diversifying linear landscape elements such as hedgerows and live fences could be one of the most practical strategies to boost biodiversity, since these features occupy very little farmland area but provide disproportionate ecological benefits.

Temporal heterogeneity 🔗

Changes in land use over time – including crop rotation patterns, seasonal variations, and historical shifts in farming systems – also contribute to landscape heterogeneity. Research reviewed by the FAO indicates that understanding temporal dynamics of landscape context can improve our understanding of how landscape structure interacts with biodiversity in agricultural settings.

How agricultural management shapes biodiversity patterns 🔗

Different farming systems create distinct biodiversity outcomes depending on their management intensity, structural features, and chemical inputs.

Intensive versus extensive farming 🔗

Intensive agriculture – characterised by monocultures, heavy pesticide and fertiliser use, large field sizes, and frequent tillage – tends to simplify both the structural and biological complexity of farming landscapes. The systematic review in npj Biodiversity found that intensive practices like mouldboard tillage, synthetic pesticide application, and monoculture cropping consistently reduce biodiversity across multiple species groups, from soil microorganisms to birds and mammals.

In contrast, less intensive approaches – including organic farming, agroforestry, and integrated pest management – generally support higher biodiversity. Practices such as cover cropping, reduced tillage, and maintaining natural buffer areas around fields were identified as particularly beneficial. The review identified four “no regret” practices that improved combined biodiversity without negatively affecting any specific taxonomic group: planned biodiversity interferences (like buffer strips and habitat patches), avoiding insecticide use, and avoiding fungicide use.

The role of chemical inputs 🔗

Pesticides and synthetic fertilisers have far-reaching effects beyond their intended targets. Heavy nitrogen fertiliser use disrupts natural nutrient cycles and contributes to water pollution. Pesticides reduce populations of pollinators, natural pest enemies, and soil organisms. Importantly, these effects extend beyond the field boundary. Nutrient runoff affects aquatic ecosystems, while pesticide drift can harm organisms in adjacent semi-natural habitats.

Structural features of farms and landscapes 🔗

The physical structure of a farm – field size, presence of hedgerows, tree cover, buffer strips, and uncultivated margins – directly affects which species can survive there. Farms that incorporate hedgerows, for instance, have been found to support approximately 32% more biodiversity than those without, according to research on agricultural biodiversity loss. Hedgerows act as corridors connecting isolated habitat patches, support rare and endangered species, and provide resources for pollinators and natural pest predators.

Non-intensive practices and their biodiversity benefits 🔗

The evidence strongly suggests that shifting toward less intensive agricultural practices can significantly enhance agrobiodiversity. Here are some key approaches supported by research.

Crop diversification: Growing multiple crop types, including intercropping and rotation systems, increases habitat variety and supports a wider range of organisms. Agricultural diversification has been shown to promote multiple ecosystem services – including pollination, pest control, and nutrient cycling – without compromising yields.

Reduced or no tillage: Minimising soil disturbance protects earthworm populations, soil microbial communities, and soil structure. Conservation tillage practices have been consistently linked to higher fungal and bacterial biomass in soils.

Organic fertilisation: Using compost, manure, and other organic amendments supports soil microbial diversity more effectively than synthetic fertilisers, particularly benefiting bacterial communities.

Maintaining semi-natural habitats: Preserving hedgerows, field margins, woodlots, and buffer strips within and around farmed areas provides refuge, food, and breeding sites for a wide range of species. These features also improve connectivity across the landscape.

Agroecological approaches: Practices such as agroforestry, where trees are integrated into farming systems, can buffer microclimatic changes at the edges of fragmented forests and protect forest-dependent biodiversity. Research published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems highlights that wildlife-friendly farmlands can facilitate species movement, dispersal, and genetic exchange, helping species persist in fragmented landscapes and adapt to climate change.

Bridging food production and biodiversity conservation 🔗

The central challenge is clear: agriculture must continue feeding a growing global population while also reversing its damage to biodiversity. These goals are not inherently contradictory, but achieving both requires a fundamental rethinking of how we manage agricultural landscapes.

Conservation cannot be limited to small protected areas surrounded by biodiversity-hostile farmland. Given that agriculture occupies the majority of land in many countries, the way farmland is managed will determine whether large-scale biodiversity targets are met or missed. Policies that incentivise landscape-level complexity, support farmers in adopting less intensive practices, and recognise the biodiversity value of agricultural habitats are essential.

The evidence is growing that complex, well-managed agricultural landscapes can serve as both productive food systems and functional ecosystems. The question is whether policy, economics, and social will can align to make this transition happen at the scale required.

What do you think? Given that agricultural lands cover the majority of habitable land in many countries, should biodiversity conservation strategies focus more on improving farming practices rather than solely expanding protected areas? And in your own region, have you noticed changes in farmland wildlife over the years – and what might be driving those changes?

References

1. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use
2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s44185-023-00034-2
3. https://www.csis.org/analysis/seeding-security-why-agrobiodiversity-loss-threatens-national-security
4. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads8197
5. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2203385119
6. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ele.14412
7. https://www.fao.org/agroecology/database/detail/en/c/1036403/
8. https://www.refinq.com/blog/biodiversity-loss-agricultural-challenges
9. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainable-food-systems/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2024.1328800/full