To maintain rich assemblages of wild plants and animals on cultivated fields conflicts with
agricultural goal. Large area ploughfields, especially those where annual crops are grown such
as crop rotation of grains only, suffer from strong biological impoverishment. So strong in fact
that the process of natural regulation of herbivorous animals by predator, parasite and pathogenic
organisms fails to function properly. The process of soil regeneration also stops. These
problems to a lowering of soil fertility and forces farmers to spend additional money on
intensification of mineral fertilizing and chemical defenses which in turn increases the hazards
of pollution by non-point sources.A relevant fact for biodiversity protection is that in Poland,
60% of the land cover is agricultural. Agriculture surrounds and permeates all other types of
ecosystems. Thus, improper farming and creation of hazards in rural areas must also influence
regions that are designated as biologically valuable and whose fundamental function is the protection
of natural resources and biodiversity of organisms. This is why only proper farming, in accordance
with sound ecological practices, will allow for the preservation of diversified organism populations.
It is obvious that agriculture alone, even after the introduction of the most rational forms of farming, will not eliminate all environmental hazards, especially those generated by public utilities, communication, recreation facilities and others. This is why in order to most effictive improve the state of the environment, system-wide cooperation is necessary to moderate the impact of hazards. The structural and property changes now occuring in the agricultural sector provides a convenient opportunity to introduce improved ecological farming principles. For example, reforestation of farmland classified in the low fertility class, creation of a network of tree plantings and field retention reservoirs, limiting the extent of melioration especially to stop systematic drainage, increase the acreage of perennial crops and replace chemical methods with biological and agrotechnical in order to combat dieseases and control plant pests.
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