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Growing Beyond Monoculture: final episode in DIVERSify web series goes live

Still image of Growing Beyond Monoculture episode
"The final episode in the DIVERSify web-series summarises recommendations about the use of mixed cropping, based on our research trials across Europe and North Africa. It also highlights how decision-makers could provide financial and policy support for mixed cropping and recommends ways to ensure that intercropping knowledge is shared across agricultural communities."

As part of the EU Horizon 2020 research project DIVERSify, researchers of the James Hutton Institute and partner institutions have been working on investigating the viability of species mixture cropping as an alternative to crop monoculture. 

During the project, they have created a video web series which explores the practical and theoretical considerations of mixed cropping and the ecosystem services that they can provide. The series explains where innovations have led to progress but also further opportunities still to be realised and future research and development needs.

This final episode in the web series, which has been released this week, aims to highlight the project’s key findings. These have been generated over four years of research trials and are combined with feedback from farmers and other stakeholders on the potential challenges, benefits and learnings on mixture cropping throughout the project. Most importantly, the final episode summarises the project’s overall recommendations about the opportunities for using mixed cropping in farming and downstream value chains.

Dr Alison Karley, an agro-ecologist at the James Hutton Institute's Ecological Sciences department and co-ordinator of the DIVERSify project, explains: “The final episode in the DIVERSify web-series summarises recommendations about the use of mixed cropping, based on our research trials across Europe and North Africa. It also highlights how decision-makers could provide financial and policy support for mixed cropping and recommends ways to ensure that intercropping knowledge is shared across agricultural communities.”

The key recommendations from the project so far are built around:

  • Reducing Inputs
  • Supporting Agrobiodiversity
  • Knowledge Sharing
  • Diversifying the Cropping Sequence
  • Leveraging Opportunities

To find out more on the project and to watch the last episode in the DIVERSify web series, please go to www.plant-teams.eu/watch.

Press and media enquiries: 

Bernardo Rodriguez-Salcedo, Media Manager, James Hutton Institute, Tel: +44 (0)1224 395089 (direct line), +44 (0)344 928 5428 (switchboard) or +44 (0)7791 193918 (mobile).


Printed from /news/growing-beyond-monoculture-final-episode-diversify-web-series-goes-live on 28/03/24 10:10:02 AM

The James Hutton Research Institute is the result of the merger in April 2011 of MLURI and SCRI. This merger formed a new powerhouse for research into food, land use, and climate change.