Ecosystem complementarity through STRIPs

Overcoming the food-energy-environment “trilemma” poses a major societal challenge. Strategically integrating strips of native prairie vegetation within row-cropped agroecosystems does just this.  A replicated watershed experiment in Iowa, USA, called STRIPs, establishes how prairie strips slow and purify water and provide habitat for native biodiversity without negatively affecting adjacent row-crops. The strips could also be harvested for bioenergy production. Prairie strips are a more cost effective means for achieving complementary ecosystem benefits from aglands than other land-use options.