Ecological Implications of Contemporary Agriculture

Agronomists and ecologists need each other and can learn from each other: agriculture cannot ignore ecological facts, neither can ecology study and conserve ecosystems without understanding contemporary agriculture. With this intention a symposium was organized on "the ecological implications of contemporary agriculture". Five major groups of problems were discussed, related to major elements of the system, each corresponding to a session of the symposium:

– the soil and its life;
– the plants, especially the unwanted ones;
– the fauna, with emphasis on the control of pests;
– the nutrient cycles and nutrient budgets (the driving force);
– the connecting elements in the rural landscape, related as they are with lotting out.

For each subject (session) two invited papers were presented in combination with a varying number of posters. All these papers were encompassed by the opening and closing lectures, which sketch the societal framework within which a more ecological approach of agriculture has to be worked out.

In this overview the different elements are rearranged and assessed according to four major groups of problems: lotting out, nutrient management, soil treatment, and weed and arthropod control. It is concluded with some comments on the possibilities to realize more ecological approaches in the framework of farming–practice and EC–politics.