Biodiversity
SymBio Polska S. A.

The company has targeted an area rich in biodiversity from which to source its farmed and wild-gathered products. Initially, all of Symbio's contracted farms and the wild gathering areas were located in the buffer zones of protected areas within a 100 km radius of Lublin. Some of its newer contracts are located in areas adjacent to the buffer zones. These areas contain sizeable amounts of important semi-natural habitats, including:

• Both dry and wet grassland and marsh often grazed at relatively low intensity by cattle;
• Diverse agricultural habitats forming rich mosaics of land use;
• Extensively managed grasslands providing important habitats for threatened meadow birds such as the cornrake (Crex crex) and whinchat (Saxicola rubetra);
• Large unfragmented areas of grassland and neighboring arable land important for migrating and wintering water birds such as geese, swans, ducks and cranes; and
• Fringe and linear habitats found within the agricultural environment, including stream banks, field margins, hedges and ponds.

Traditional Polish farming techniques - which Symbio enhances through the provision of technical assistance in organic methods - have generally been biodiversity friendly due to:

• Low chemical usage and therefore low environmental pollution and runoff into hydrologic systems;
• Small field sizes, which increase the length of the contact zone and the ratio of biologically-rich edge area to cropped area;
• Linear hedge divisions between fields that are rich with shelter, nesting and rest habitats and that serve as movement and distribution corridors;
• Absence of large machinery which cause soil compaction and erosion; and
• Large areas, often wetlands, which have been left permanently undisturbed as a matter of cultural tradition and sometimes because of the marginal yields from these lands.

The traditional farming culture of Poland, which Symbio helps to support and maintain, has managed to preserve some important agricultural biodiversity resources through continued cultivation or husbandry. These resources include:

• Ancient apple varieties and other fruits;
• Endangered cultivated varieties of certain vegetables such as onions, cucumber and pumpkin;
• Threatened herbs;
• Remnants of commercial crops such as Camelina Sativa, Paphanus sativas var. Aleiformis and Panicum milliaceum; and
• Ancient varieties of cattle (the Polish Red Cow), work horses (Sokulskie Horse), chickens (Gelona nushka) and several types of pigs.

Despite these biological benefits, the marginal economic returns of traditional agriculture have contributed to the greatest agricultural threat to biodiversity in Poland: land abandonment. The lack of maintenance of traditional agricultural systems continues to cause a loss of biodiversity. Symbio's activities help to solve this problem.

Symbio has developed a business model, now entering the fifth year of implementation, for increasing economic returns to the small, independent Polish family farm while at the same time enhancing biodiversity conservation on the farm and in the surrounding landscape. The company has been formed to organize organic certification for farms, coordinate and technically support production, including wild picked products, and to market these products. In addition, through their technical support services to farmers, Symbio provides basic training in the concepts and practices related to biodiversity conservation. Symbio is also partnering with several governmental and non-governmental organizations to identify important agricultural biodiversity resources and develop markets for them in order to help ensure their long-term conservation.

It is Symbio's aim to direct agricultural development in biodiversity sensitive areas to enhance biodiversity by:

• Increasing the rate of hectare conversion from traditional to organic production in and around IUCN designated regions by developing the national and international market for products grown and processed in the areas described under "Description of Ecosystem" below; Contracting multiple products on each farm to discourage monoculture (for example grains, berries, herbs, and vegetables on each contracted farm);
• Encouraging farm-level biodiversity enhancement measures (see section below) by including in its farm training, extension and inspection system grassland management, hedgerow development, wet-land preservation, rotation systems, re-forestation, and use of grasses and weeds for surface and ground water-control
• Provide farmers with a way to abide by existing Polish legislation strictly restricting the use of conventional agri-chemicals in and around Polish National and Landscape parks;
• Developing the national and international market for products grown and processed in the areas described below through Symbio's core business activities.

Symbio is developing its biodiversity enhancement work to include:

• Farm-level description of ecosystem: hydrographic conditions, landscape structure and inventory of wildlife habitats
• Based on the above, to prescribe farm-specific management goals and an inspection system to evaluate enforcement and effects

A. Farm-level biodiversity enhancement measures.

1. Grasslands - different management of grassland produces a strong plant and animal diversification. For example, on meadows being cut only once a year a different vegetation can develop than on grassland that is mown twice or three times. Pastures with different systems of grazing lead toward a great variety of typical plant communities. Timing of cutting influences migratory bird populations.

2. Arable Land - different communities of weed species appear not only due to the different types of soil, but depending on when the field is ploughed in autumn or in springtime. The use of manure leads to an increase in diversity in the landscape for healthier soil and crops. Tillage (spring vs. autumn, minimizing, avoiding heavy machinery), fertilizer (organic manure as food resource of macroathropods), crop rotation (multi-cropping, grass-clover lays for regeneration of soil animals), are some examples of techniques that may be adopted.

3. Landscape Habitats - supporting biodiversity alongside the cultivated land using landscape elements as habitats for beneficial organisms. For example hedgerows, ponds, weed strips and meadows with flowers attract predators of various pests with beneficial influence on crops.

• Symbio and Biodiversity ;
• Endangered Species ;
• Symbio and Rural Development ;
• Affiliations ;