This is the VOA SpecialEnglish Agriculture Report.
A study done in the Netherlands has found that twenty years offarm policies to improve the condition of wildlife have not worked.
Dutch scientists say the affected farmlands are no richer inplant and bird life than other fields. They say the policies alsomay have led to a decrease in some wildlife populations.
Agricultural scientists from Wageningen University in theNetherlands supervised the study. They say there is an urgent needfor scientists to study the usefulness of such policies. The Dutchteam reported its findings in Nature magazine.
The report notes that farming methods to help the environment arevery popular. It says they are commonly accepted as a way to dealwith the harmful effects of modern agriculture on the environment.
Farmers in the Netherlands have been using environmentallyfriendly farm methods since Nineteen-Eighty-One. Over the past nineyears, the European Union has spent aboutone-thousand-five-hundred-million dollars a year on this kind offarming. This represents about four percent of the European Union’scommon agricultural policy spending. The report says that amount isexpected to rise to ten percent before long.
In the new study, the agricultural scientists counted the kindsand numbers of plants, birds and insects in more thanone-hundred-fifty fields in the Netherlands. Traditional methods offarming were used on half of the fields. Farmers usedenvironmentally friendly methods on the other fields.
These methods include using fewer chemical products to killinsects or fertilize crops. The farmers also waited until June orJuly before removing unwanted plants from their fields. This is doneto provide more time for birds to build nests and hatch theirchicks.
The study found that environmental farming resulted in smallincreases in bees and other insects. However, it resulted indecreases in some kinds of birds. Lead scientist David Kleijn sayshe thinks the decreased use of fertilizers limited the number ofworms in the soil. Birds depend on the insects for food.
Other scientists note that the Dutch team examined only plantsand wildlife. It did not look at the effects on soil or the totalenvironment. Experts say more studies on the effects ofenvironmental farming are needed.
This VOA Special English AGRICULTURE REPORT was written by GeorgeGrow.