Diversifying Landscapes
The China Rice Network
The growing demands on agricultural yields to secure the required food, fibre, and bioenergy leads not only to benefits for the involved stakeholders (governments, corporations, and farmers), but also environmental degradation. Applying agroecological principles such as diversification to farming landscapes can help to secure biodiversity, ecosystem services, and crop yields.
Together with colleagues in China and internationally, we have launched the 'China Rice Network' in 2021, a research platform to better understand how to design sustainable and resilient rice production systems. We are focusing on diversified landscapes and specifically technology-based approaches to improve benefits for farmers and the environment. Overall, we want to support initiatives to effectively manage rice production systems sustainably.
The Chine Rice Network is coordinated by Dr. Xueqing He.
The Present and the Future
In the past, we contributed towards quantifying the benefits of agricultural diversification globally (Tamburini et al. 2020) and showed that diversification can benefit biodiversity, ecosystem services and crop yields. We also hosted a conference on the role of diversification and technology to support the agricultural paradigm shift in China and globally.
In the future, we are aiming to integrate our automated monitoring devices in rice fields across China to quantify how diversification can benefit the environment and people. We are also interested in informing policy on diversification strategies.
