Multiple livestock and crop species with sufficient space and good conditions will spread out the workload, reduce pest populations and promote good health. This will reduce the impact in the unlikely event of a problem knowing that the farmer cannot fall back on pesticides and antibiotics, and thus spread out the risk and the cost in case of a crop failure or a market failure of any one product. Organic farmers maintain fence and tree lines to provide a habitat for birds and beneficial insects in order to prey upon nuisance insects. In the soil, diversity ensures an optimum nutrient cycle with the decomposition of crop and animal residues. It also favours the productive symbiosis between soil life and plant life.
Cover crops provide nutrients to the soil organisms while competing with and smothering weeds.
Therefore, an organic farmer will maintain pest and disease populations below dangerous thresholds by promoting life and diversity with crop rotations, compost, cover crops, green manure, appropriate PH levels, natural habitats, mixed farms and especially by avoiding toxic inputs. The challenge is to get out of a vicious cycle of dependency on inputs and develop a beneficial cycle of bio-diversity.