Cropdiversity

CROPDIVERSITY
’...we should not only seek diversity within cropping systems, but within agriculture as a whole — diversity in farmers, in incentives and in perspectives. True resilience, after all, comes from diversity in every form.’

With my Nuffield research I focussed on the potential of crop diversity for Dutch agriculture. This topic has my interest because I feel there are more and smarter ways to use crop diversity for sustainable or regenerative agricultural going into the future.
My name is Lotte van Dueren den Hollander. I was born and raised on an arable farm in Oud-Beijerland, the Netherlands. You could say that my interest in, especially arable, farming was spoon-fed. However, I became consciously interested around the age of 16, when I started looking more actively to ways I could work and participate on the farm.
This led me to studying Plant Sciences in Wageningen and after starting my first ‘real’ job at BO Akkerbouw (trade association for arable farming), with parttime working for the farm at home. To me, it’s very important to keep a
connection with actual farming in practise, because I want to know what I’m talking about.
Crop diversity has been of interest to me for a longer time. It started with an interest in cover crops and had expanded
to crop diversity in the broadest definition. What lead me to focus my Nuffield research on this topic is an experiment at the farm at home.
There we are trying to implement companion plants with potatoes. First results were positive. ‘If this works well, what else is there to explore?’ was my thought. This report is meant as a summary of what I learned during my Nuffield studies, in terms of my study topic, but also personally. The report is meant for anyone who wants to read about my research on crop diversity. It should be noted that it’s experience-based research, and not scientific research. I hope to spark broader interest in the topic of crop diversity.