Farmscapes Land Management

Land clearing for agricultural use is a primary driver of biodiversity loss and fragmentation of natural ecosystems. Restoring natural habitat connectivity by retaining quality habitats and increasing on-farm tree cover contributes to species' mobility and persistence in agricultural landscapes. Nonetheless, remarkably few studies have quantified the impacts of on-farm practices for species' mobility measured as functional connectivity within the context of farm and broader spatial levels of landscape organization. We tested how adding and removing trees in different configurations on a farm comprised of coffee plantations and cattle pastures can help evaluate species’ mobility at the farmscape level (an area comprising the farm plus a 1.5 km buffer area).

Land use composition and configuration for the four management scenarios including farm and farmscape (1.5 km buffered farm) area. “Not modeled” refers to land uses not monitored by CATIE's Bird Monitoring Program such as cropland, gardens, infrastructure, open pastures, scrub and water bodies. Can be ideal to locate farmscapes on the less productive land of your farm. This may include areas with poorly draining or sandy soils or along steep slopes. These areas of the farm are especially suitable for perennial farmscapes because they can help improve the soil and prevent erosion.

We coupled bird capture data and scenario modeling to assess species mobility of five neotropical bird species with distinct life history characteristics representing a gradient of forest dependency. We used seven years of mist-netting data to estimate species habitat affinity and to predict species mobility using the Circuitscape model across a 4371 ha farmscape in Costa Rica. Circuitscape allowed us to estimate changes in movement probability and relative changes in resistance to movement that species experience during dispersal (measured as resistance distance and passage area through which species can move) under four farmscape management scenarios.

The four land-use scenarios included: (a) the 2011 farmscape land-use composition and configuration, b) converting all existing live fences to post-and-wire fence lines in the farm c) converting simplified coffee agroforests to multistrata coffee agroforests in the farm, and d) placing multistrata live fences around the perimeter of every parcel and roads on the farm. Model results suggest that existing multistrata live fences maintain the sporadic movement of all five species irrespective of forest dependence. Likewise, adding multistrata live fences around individual fields presents a more efficient strategy for increasing species mobility than multistrata coffee agroforestry systems in the assessed farmscape, by doubling the passage areas available to all species, although it created labyrinths with “dead-ends” for two species. While retaining large habitat patches remains important for conservation, managing on-farm connectivity complements these efforts by increasing movement probability and reducing dispersal resistance for forest-dependent bird species.

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AbstractNew pest management programs must strive to achieve sustained, improved crop production and profitable agriculture, while simultaneously conserving natural resources and protecting the environment. Redesigning farms to take advantage of natural biological control can improve the sustainability of integrated pest management programs. A technique common in this approach to pest management is farmscaping, which refers to the arrangement or configuration of plants that promote biological pest management by attracting and sustaining beneficial organisms. Farmscaping is an ecologically based, whole-farm approach to enhancing the efficacy and local abundance of arthropod natural enemies through modification of the environment. However, by adding these resources back to simplified agriculture systems, they provide numerous other ecosystem services such as erosion control, reduced runoff, esthetic benefits, increased revenue, nutrient management, pollination services, soil health, as well as improved pest suppression. Herein, we discuss the strategy of farmscaping, review the theory of how it can improve pest management, and discuss the practicalities and risks involved in incorporating farmscapes into integrated pest management programs.

As we move into a new era of pest management, programs must use practices aimed at achieving sustained, improved crop production and profitable agriculture, while simultaneously conserving natural resources and protecting the environment. Conservation agriculture emphasizes proactive, multitactic practices in contrast to the “single approach” reactive methods generally used in conventional systems. A technique common in conservation agriculture is farmscaping, which refers to the arrangement or configuration of plants that promote biological pest management by attracting and sustaining beneficial organisms (; ). The term farmscaping is more commonly referred to as “conservation biological control or ecological engineering” and has been broadened to incorporate other types of companion plantings such as: 1) living mulches or trap crops; 2) fence rows or borders; 3) island patches within rows or occupying entire rows spaced at regular intervals within the field; or 4) herb or flower cash crops intercropped with vegetable or fruit crops (; and ). However, it is important to note that while some overlap exists among techniques, the primary goals of each are slightly different.

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For example, trap crops work to attract pest species away from a cash crop, not as a mechanism to attract and conserve natural enemies. Cut flower farmscape in mixed vegetable cropping system.Ideal farmscape plantings provide resources for beneficial insects, suppress weeds, and grow in close proximity to the cash crop without competing for light, water, and nutrients. The configuration of crop plants and companion plants can impact the suite of arthropod pests and natural enemies present in the field (, ). These practices can have numerous benefits including the potential to enhance activity of arthropod natural enemies and improve biological control, but they might also exacerbate pest populations (,; ). In this article, we review the theory of how farmscaping can improve pest management and discuss the practicalities and potential risks involved in incorporating farmscapes into integrated pest management (IPM) programs.