Impact of 2-years practice of organic coffee farming on soil arthropod diversity

Organic farming has been recommended by many experts in the world because of its positive ecological impacts such as increasing biodiversity. In Indonesia, the practice of organic farming is very widespread, including in smallholder coffee plantations. This study was intended to determine the impact of the organic farming system applied by smallholder coffee farmers for 2 years on soil arthropod diversity. On the two coffee farmlands, the conventional and organics (1 ha each), 10 plots of 5 x 20 meters were set and in each of these plots 5 sampling points were defined for collecting soil arthropods using pit-fall technique.  The analysis of arthropod diversity in the two fields was quantified using the Shannon-Wiener diversity index model. The results showed that the two compared coffee farming systems had the same index of diversity (H ') and evenness (E). However, statistical tests using the Hutcheson t-test revealed that the variance in diversity of arthropods in organic coffee farms was significantly higher than in conventional ones (α <0.001). Therefore, it can be concluded that the practice of organic coffee farming, although in a short time, has been able and potent to increase the population and/or diversity of soil animals.