Employing diversity planting

Growing plants in considered assortments in order to promote their health and growth and avoid the penalties of monoculture.

Modern agriculture is pushing traditional farmers to plant areas with monocultures of genetically uniform plants. This is risky because the plants are vulnerable to yield-limiting factors. Situ conservation methods have many benefits; although they do not provide a panacea for conserving natural sources of crop genetic resources. Researchers in certain countries have helped farmers return to traditional chinampas and multilayered, species-rich gardens. In Bolivia, project AGRUCO is helping peasants recover their production autonomy.

Kandyan Gardens (KG) or Kandyan Forest Gardens (KFG) of Sri Lanka represent a traditional system of perennial cropping which has been in practice for several centuries. It is essentially a system of mixed cropping with a variety of economically valuable groups of tree crops such as spices, fruits, medicinal plants and timber species. However, these systems are usually in small homestead holdings and are practised in only a few districts. KFG is different from other homegarden systems mostly in terms of the variety of plants grown. Moreover the farmers who practice this system enjoy a 'relatively better' level of living by virtue of returns from both the economic cash crops and the subsistence products. Presumably, with improved management, the system has the potential for increased production and better returns.