Integrating the economic and environmental performance of agricultural systems: A demonstration using Farm Business Survey data and Farmscoper.

There is a continued need to monitor the environmental impacts of agricultural systems while also ensuring sufficient agricultural production. However, it can be difficult to collect relevant environmental data on a large enough number of farms and studies that do so often neglect to consider the financial drivers that ultimately determine many aspects of farm management and performance. This paper outlines a methodology for generating environmental indicators from the Farm Business Survey (FBS), an extensive annual economic survey of representative farms in England and Wales.

Assessing the potential impacts of a revised set of on-farm nutrient and sediment 'basic' control measures for reducing agricultural diffuse pollution across England.

The need for improved abatement of agricultural diffuse water pollution represents cause for concern throughout the world. A critical aspect in the design of on-farm intervention programmes concerns the potential technical cost-effectiveness of packages of control measures. The European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive (WFD) calls for Programmes of Measures (PoMs) to protect freshwater environments and these comprise 'basic' (mandatory) and 'supplementary' (incentivised) options.

The changing trend in nitrate concentrations in major aquifers due to historical nitrate loading from agricultural land across England and Wales from 1925 to 2150.

Nitrate is necessary for agricultural productivity, but can cause considerable problems if released into aquatic systems. Agricultural land is the major source of nitrates in UK groundwater. Due to the long time-lag in the groundwater system, it could take decades for leached nitrate from the soil to discharge into freshwaters.

The effect of within-crop habitat manipulations on the conservation biological control of aphids in field-grown lettuce.

Within-crop habitat manipulations have the potential to increase the biological control of pests in horticultural field crops. Wildflower strips have been shown to increase the abundance of natural enemies, but there is little evidence to date of an impact on pest populations. The aim of this study was to determine whether within-crop wildflower strips can increase the natural regulation of pests in horticultural field crops.

Do functional traits improve prediction of predation rates for a disparate group of aphid predators?

Aphid predators are a systematically disparate group of arthropods united on the basis that they consume aphids as part of their diet. In Europe, this group includes Araneae, Opiliones, Heteroptera, chrysopids, Forficulina, syrphid larvae, carabids, staphylinids, cantharids and coccinellids. This functional group has no phylogenetic meaning but was created by ecologists as a way of understanding predation, particularly for conservation biological control.