‘Sustainable intensification’ is now often used to describe the future direction for agriculture and food production as a way to address the challenges of increasing global population, food security, climate change and resource conservation. There is a growing consensus that sustainable intensification should not only avoid further environmental damage, but...

Agri-environmental measures are considered the main tool available to stop the loss of biodiversity associated with the intensification of agriculture. However, the question of whether or not they constitute an adequate tool to achieve this objective continues to be the subject of scientific debate. The evaluations carried out so far...

The work analyzes the importance of plant diversity in agroecosystems and the effects of the intensification of agricultural and landscape practices on plant diversity. The review of several studies carried out by the research team highlights that agricultural intensification, both at the field and landscape levels, negatively affects the abundance...

The development of breeding strategies that link biodiversity and crop production and regulation services is compulsory when it comes to promoting a low-input agriculture (which includes organic farming). In low-input agricultural systems, yield production should rely on the tools provided by the diversity within and between crops, using local resources...

We used coffee farming households as units of analysis to synthetize agrobiodiversity data in agricultural plots managed by coffee cooperative members of Nicaragua and El Salvador. Surveys, focus groups and plant inventories were used to analyze agrobiodiversity and its contribution to household livelihoods. Coffee farming families managed high levels of...

Since soils provide the basic physical and biological support for plant production, they are the basic unit for agroecosystem dynamics and functioning. Although the effects of anthropogenic practices on the soil abiotic component are widely documented, there are few tools able to assess the impact of these practices on soil...