Biomimicry: a new frontier of Innovation

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2.1 AGRICULTURE AND BREEDING 
 
2.1.1 Overview and the “Green Revolution” 
 
Agriculture was born ten thousand years ago. It is incredible how an activity so nature-based 
has been going far from natural practices. The continuous increase of population has forced to 
use more and more land to counterbalance this augmentation: from four billion hectares of sev-
enteenth century to almost five billion of 2016 (see the graph above). 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
But it is not only how much land we use. It is also how we use land. In fact, we stepped from 
an agricultural system based on subsistence, moving to industrial farming. 
 
When Industrial Revolution started to influence agriculture, traditional farms abandoned their 
original dimension based on the diversification and coexistence of crops and productions. 
 
In this continuous research for over-production, we are sacrificing the main raw material of this 
sector: our crops. In fact, we are removing their unborn defences, isolating them from mixed 
species groupings, narrowing their genetic diversity, and gutted the health of their soil.
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 Biomimicry – Innovation Inspired by Nature, Janine Benyus
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Focusing on the last point, compromising the health of soil was our unforgivable mistake, ac-
cording to historians of agriculture. Topsoil is essentially non-renewable; it can take thousands 
of years for regeneration. With our practices we are eroding, poisoning, and simplifying our 
soil, decreasing tragically its capacity to grow crops. 
 
The “Green Revolution” that was spreading proposed an innovative agricultural approach 
from a technological point of view based on the production of new varieties of plants and the 
development of new agricultural techniques, in what was heralded as the answer to world star-
vation. 
Green Revolution was calibrated on two main concepts: 
 
• the design of new highly productive hybrids through new genetic improvement tech-
niques; 
• usage of chemical fertilizers for the correction of the characteristics of the soils; 
• the implementation plant protection products for the control of weeds and novice in-
sects; 
• new machinery and techniques for the automation of work. 
 
The maximization of yields and profits coupled with the simplification and standardization of 
work attracted more and more farmers, including those with small properties, leading them to 
the path of mechanization, specialization, and monoculture.  
However, the green revolution soon proved that it could not keep its promises, proving unsus-
tainable in the long term both at an environmental level and in terms of safeguarding the com-
panies themselves. 
 
The spread of hybrids chosen for growth, longevity, and productivity has led to the cultivation 
of very few varieties of seeds with a consequent loss of biodiversity, especially of the varieties 
with high nutritional value. In fact, the homogenization of fields spread rapidly because farmers 
started to purchase hybrid seeds, which do not pass their genetical traits to the next generation, 
tempted and convinced by the promise of higher yields.
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This has caused a domino-mechanism, in which economical competition and survival obliged 
farmers who had not embraced “Green Revolution” to do it as well. Farming started to imitate 
industry, not nature, trying to chase profitability, volumes, and economies of scale.  
From a social point of view, the green revolution ended up damaging small agricultural realities 
who, unable to compete with the yields of industrial seeds, ended up losing their land to the 
advantage of megafarms (higher degree of concentration of the sector). 
 
In addition to this, genetically modified seeds have been patented and sold by multinationals 
together with specific herbicides, fertilizers, and agricultural machinery, produced and mar-
keted by the same companies, thus developing a relationship of dependence of farmers towards 
multinationals.  
The ratio between required inputs and harvest produced has been growing more and more, soon 
demonstrating a real dependence on synthetic chemical products which, in addition to being 
produced from fossil fuels, have seriously compromised the quality and fertility of soils.  
The phenomenon is well described by data: from less than 20 million tonnes of nitrogen ferti-
lizer (the most common one) consumption of 1961 to more than 100 million tonnes of 2014.
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2.1.2 Biomimicry reaction 
 
But how can we break this dangerous cycle? How can we reach a sustainable farming system 
that bring social value to industry and population? 
Biomimicry can be the answer. 
 
The base principle is always imitating the nature. So, it is necessary to farm the way nature 
farms. 
The first step is to analyse the way nature organize agriculture itself. 
According to The Land Institute, a non-profit research, education, and policy organization ded-
icated to sustainable agriculture based in United States, prairies (the wildest form of land) have 
a recurrent pattern of development:  
 
• most of the plants are perennials; 
• diversity of species; 
• prairies always maintain its four classic plant types – warm-season grasses, cool-sea-
son grasses, legumes, and composites.
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2.1.3 Perennials re-introduction 
 
With the rapid growing of world population to nearly 10 billion by 2050, global demands on 
agricultural products for food, materials and bioenergy will at least be doubled compared to 
2005 levels, which requires much higher biomass yield per unit farmland area. 
Meanwhile, to combat the accelerated climate change and increase soil quality, there are grow-
ing needs to increase soil organic matter content in agricultural systems. Therefore, innovative 
cropping systems and cropping managements that can sustainably increase biomass yield for 
biorefining are highly required. Some studies are advocating that perennial crops are potentially 
the most promising bioenergy crops because of their large biomass yield, deep root distribution, 
high resource use efficiency and long growing season
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. 
 
According to the researchers Ji Chen, Poul Erik Lærke and Uffe Jørgensen, perennials demon-
strate a higher biomass yield and a higher biomass stability along the years of investigation (in 
the graph above). 
Moreover, perennial crops significantly increased Soil Organic Carbon content by 4% and Soil 
Organic Carbon stock by 11% at 0–100 cm depth across the five years. The opposite responses 
of SOC content and stock underannual and perennial crops led to even more significant differ-
ences between the crop types
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. 
 
So, we can claim that perennials could bring to a higher fertility and quality of soil, and a deeper 
respect of environmental factors. 
 
 
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 Land conversion from annual to perennial crops: A win-win strategy for biomass yield and soil organic carbon 
and total nitrogen sequestration - Ji Chen, Poul Erik Lærke, Uffe Jørgensen 
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 Land conversion from annual to perennial crops: A win-win strategy for biomass yield and soil organic carbon 
and total nitrogen sequestration - Ji Chen, Poul Erik Lærke, Uffe Jørgensen
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(A) Five-year average biomass yield and (B) yield stability from annual and perennial crops 
across the five year. (C) Annual biomass yield from annual and perennial crops from 2013 to 
2017. – source: Land conversion from annual to perennial crops: A win-win strategy for biomass yield 
and soil organic car-bon and total nitrogen sequestration - Ji Chen, Poul Erik Lærke, Uffe Jørgensen
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2.1.4 Polyculture vs monoculture 
 
Diversity of species means polyculture. Because of the development of pesticides, herbicides, 
and fertilizers, monoculture became the predominant form of agriculture in the 1950s. 
The prevalence of polyculture declined greatly in popularity at that time in more economically 
developed countries where it was deemed to produce less yield while requiring more labour. 
However, traditional polyculture systems continue to be an essential part of the food production 
system today. Around 15% to 20% of the world's agriculture is estimated as relying on tradi-
tional polyculture systems. Most Latin American farmers continue to intercrop their maize, 
beans, and squash.  
Moreover, polyculture is returning in popularity in more developed countries as well as food 
producers seek to reduce their environmental and health impacts
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. 
 
Polyculture is not easy. It means taking all the difficulties encountered in monoculture breeding 
and multiply them. Normally, a breeder has to find plants that guarantee high yields, large seed 
size, uniform maturation time, uniform maturation time, disease, and pest resistance, etc.  
Along with these important traits, the key feature in polyculture is compatibility, a plant’s 
ability to perform well when grown next to other plants. 
This factor adds complexity for sure, which means a more labour-intensive process, and, obvi-
ously, more expensive. On the other hand, the potential of polyculture is eloquent, and this may 
be more than sufficient to cover the increasing efforts and costs. 
 
Firstly, polyculture can “overyield” monoculture. Overyielding is the phenomenon by which a 
crop yields more per unit acre when it is growing in a polyculture than when it is in a monocul-
ture.  
In this case, the concept of compatibility is key; in fact, plants grown next to different but that 
have patterns of complementarity do not have to compete in the same way when they are next 
to identical plant. The absence of competition guarantees the capturing of more resources than 
in same-species crops.  
 
 
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