Agrobiodiversity and habitat data of organic, permaculture and conventional horticultural farms of Central Hungary

Description

Methods

Agrobiodiversity indicators were surveyed once, in July 2020. On a printed satellite image, the current crop plots were delineated and cultivated crops recorded, similar to the research of Hirschfeld and Van Acker (2019) and Flores and Buot (2021). Data were digitized using QGIS 3.10.9 (A Coruñ), and agrobiodiversity maps of the farms were created and the crop and weed species list was recorded per farm in Excel. The habitat survey was carried out in June. I visited the farms and the areas adjacent to them and determined the main plant species of the areas. Based on these field observations and aerial photographs, the habitat patches of the farms and their surroundings were defined and delinaeted according to the hungarian General National Habitat Classification System (Á-NÉR- 2011, Bölöni et al. 2011) and the naturalness of the habitat patches were also determined (based on Király et al. 2009).

Abstract

A summary of the PhD dissertation:

Our prevailing agricultural system violates sustainability criteria at many points and has a severe impact on natural ecosystems, as many studies and researchers have shown today. Several concepts have emerged on how to harmonize the maintenance of agroecosystems with production needs, one of them being sustainability and the more recent concept of ecosystem services. The objectives of the two concepts are very similar, as they both seek to balance the functions of agriculture and harmonize the impact of humans on the environment, but within a different conceptual framework. The common problem is how to measure, demonstrate, and communicate to society, the extent to which individual farms can meet these principles in practice. During my research, I started by analyzing this problem at the conceptual, and methodological levels but my main objective was to compare permaculture, organic and conventional farming systems along the two concepts based on empirical research. To this end, I conducted field studies in 15 small-scale, diverse horticultural farms (5-5-5 of each of the three types) in Pest and Nógrád counties in Hungary in 2020, related to soil, biodiversity or a specific ecosystem service (e.g. predation, decomposition, pollination). After the field and laboratory work, I interviewed the participating farmers in the first half of 2021, part of which was structured (to assess farming practices), while the second half was semi-structured questions to assess farmer attitudes. The data were first aggregated at farm type level and significant differences were statistically analyzed, while at the same time, the interviews were also aggregated and subjected to qualitative content analysis. I then aggregated the results along the four dimensions of sustainability and five ecosystem services and carried out a complex assessment. Finally, the data were thematically organized and subjected to principal component analysis to explore the interrelations between them.

 I found several significant differences between the farming systems, most of which supported the existence of positive ecological benefits of permaculture farming. I found that in the good governance dimension, permaculture performed best in terms of ethical farm management, while organic farming performed best in terms of professional management. In the environmental dimension, permaculture performed the best, with conventional performing the least. In the economic dimension, organic farming performed best, with permaculture performing the least. In the social dimension, organic farming performed best in terms of farmer welfare, while permaculture in terms of social innovation and participation; conventional farming underperformed both organic and permaculture. In all cases, permaculture had the highest potential for the studied ecosystem services (decomposition, global climate regulation, predation and pollination), as well as biodiversity as a characteristic of agroecosystem status. I have made several suggestions for further development of the research, emphasizing that it would be worthwhile to carry out more detailed, multi-year measurements with a larger sample size.