Currently, world agriculture is faced with drastic challenges to produce sufficient food while minimizing negative environmental effects of crop cultivation. Unlike traditional agriculture, which used local biodiversity and species interactions to sustain food production, modern agriculture uses fewer high-yield crop varieties and largely ignores species interactions. Modern agriculture relies on chemically-driven modern varieties and irrigation to ensure high production. However, those practices induce negative environmental effects such as pest resistance to pesticides or elevated costs of production. In recent years, whether and how biodiversity should be integrated into modern agriculture has been an important research trend.

In this paper, we reviewed the research on the utilization of biodiversity in agriculture in the last decades. We then proposed future research on intensified development of sustainable global agriculture with integrated biotechnology, precision agro-technology and biodiversity utilization. Unlike natural ecosystems, agro-ecosystem species can be classified into productive biota (e.g., crops, forest trees and animals), resource biota (e.g., pollinating insects and crop-related wild species) and destructive biota (e.g., weeds and insect pests). Productive biota cultured by farmers dominated agro-systems and contributed to food production. Utilization of productive biota diversity in agriculture includes the application of genetic, species and landscape diversity. Studies indicated that uses of multi-gene varieties and mixtures of varieties were the key approaches to genetic diversity. This effectively controlled diseases in coffee, barley, wheat and rice crops. Genetic diversity mechanisms controlled diseases via resistant plant pathogen dilution or physical isolation.

For species diversity utilization, intercropping and co-culture of crops and animals were the two common approaches. Legume-cereal intercropping and rice-fish co-cultures were the two successful examples of species diversity use in agro-systems. Intercropping and or co-cultures reduce the applications of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and promote higher harvests, which can be explained through positive species interactions and complementary use of resources. For example, super-harvests often occurred in legume-cereal intercrops mainly as a result of facilitative root interactions, including nitrogen transfers and nutrient mobilizations. In rice-fish systems, fish reduced rice pests whereas rice moderated fish water environment which in turn enhanced pest removal. This positive relationship between rice and fish resulted in reduced pesticide use. Experiments also indicated that complementary use of nitrogen (N) in rice-fish systems resulted in low N fertilizer use and low N release into the environment.

Within agricultural areas, diverse croplands in mosaic patterns maintained natural habitats (e.g., small grassland) and field margins helped develop diverse agro-landscapes. Studies showed agro-landscape diversity potentially provided shelter and alternative foods for resource biota in agro-systems. Although biodiversity utilization in agriculture was successful in many traditional agro-systems, studies on successful integration of biodiversity into modern agriculture were rare. For example, studies were needed in landscape diversity designs for large-scale agriculture. Positive species interactions and complementary resource uses also needed consideration in the development of modern agriculture such as intercrop or species co-culture systems. Field facility for diverse species co-existence needed sufficient construction. New machinery suitable for intercrop or species co-culture systems needed development as well. Information-based precision agro-technology suitable for intercrop or species co-culture systems likewise needed development.