Principles of sustainable land-use systems developed and evaluated by the Munich Research Alliance on Agro-Ecosystems (FAM)

Future agriculture has to protect resources while maintaining high productivity. In order to achieve both, a typical segment of an arable landscape was re-designed and principles of sustainable land use were consequently implemented by the FAM Research Alliance. This was with integrated as well as organic farming to show that these principles can be applied under greatly contrasting management systems. The main task of the Research Alliance, namely to study the fluxes of energy, water, matter, information and money determining agro-ecosystems, allowed to identify to what extent these land-use principles may serve as models for future agriculture. The changes in landscape design and farming greatly lowered the biotic and abiotic problems of present agriculture while economic returns increased during the 8-year study period. Both goals, environmental and economic welfare can be met at the same time. The improved organic system may even include the conservation of rare and sensitive plant species into normal arable use. On the other hand, as its productivity is lower than under integrated farming conditions higher prices than presently paid for its products are called for. This may limit the acreage under organic use. As the investigated site is situated in a typical landscape of intensive agriculture where highly endangered plant species scarcely occur, the protection of the non-biotic resources seems to be more important. The improved integrated management system in combination with landscape re-design predominantly protected the soil fauna and non-biotic resources. Consequently, when the yields reached by conventional farming must be maintained, the integrated system might be a solution for such landscapes. Nevertheless, concepts should be developed that improve the spreading of rare species.