Biodiversity of the cropping system in Poland’s family farms with various production strategies in terms of the requirements of the Common Agricultural Policy

Abstract

The structure of cropland adjusted to the specialization of farm production, apart from production and economic func-tions, may also be an element influencing the maintenance of bio-diversity of rural areas.The paper presents research on the diversity and uniformi-ty of biological cropping patterns in family farms with different production strategies. The three indicators: the number of plant species grown on the farm, Shannon-Wiener index (H’) and the Pielou evenness index (J’) were used. The study showed the differences of analyzed indexes. Mi-xed-production farms with the highest number of cultivated spe-cies in the cropping pattern (H’=1.80) were the most beneficial in terms of the diversity of crops (8.0). However, together with cattle and dairy farms, they were characterized by the most ho-mogeneous cropping pattern (J’=0.89 and J’=0.88). On the other hand, the group of grain farms that produced the lowest average number of cultivated crops (4.5) was characterized by the lowest diversity of crop structure (H’=1.16) and its lowest uniformity (J’=0.83). Taking into account the assumptions concerning crop diversi-fication, obligatory under the framework of greening, limit values of diversity and uniformity of cropping structure indicators were determined. The comparison of the cropping structure indicators obtained in the study with their limit values showed that the crop-ping structure in all groups of farms was characterized by much greater diversity and evenness, which resulted in its more benefi-cial environmental impact.