Periodic Reporting for period 3 - SHOWCASE (SHOWCASing synergies between agriculture, biodiversity and Ecosystem services to help farmers capitalising on native biodiversity)
Reporting period: 2023-11-01 to 2024-10-31
Biodiversity conservation is firmly embedded in EU legislation and regulatory frameworks. There is increasing recognition of the pivotal role biodiversity plays in maintaining productive farming systems through the pollination, natural pest regulation and soil services it provides. Yet, practices aimed at enhancing agricultural productivity often adversely affect native and domestic biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. Farmland biodiversity is steeply declining in most regions of Europe, and society at large is increasingly concerned about the loss of public goods, such as iconic wildlife and cultural landscapes. The evidence base underlying effective biodiversity conservation on farmland has steadily strengthened, with studies demonstrating that management can increase biodiversity and enhance the delivery of a range of regulating and supporting ecosystem services. However, this has not yet resulted in adoption of biodiversity management by the farming sector at a scale sufficient for significant biodiversity benefits. SHOWCASE aims “to make biodiversity an integral part of European farming by identifying effective incentives to invest in biodiversity in diverse socio-ecological contexts, providing the evidence that these incentives result in biodiversity increases and biodiversity-based, socio-economic benefits, and communicating both the principles and best practices to as wide a range of stakeholders as possible.”
Our specific objectives are:
• To establish a long-lasting European multi-actor network of Experimental Biodiversity Areas (EBAs) for the development, testing and showcasing, together with farmers, of approaches to effectively integrate biodiversity into farm management across different European landscapes.
• To identify, along a broad gradient of land use from intensification to abandonment, which economic, agro-ecological and social factors incentivise farmers to actively support biodiversity on their farms.
• To establish, with farmers, a strong evidence base on public and private goods, as well as costs, associated with promoting native biodiversity, in a range of European farming systems and socio-economic contexts.
• To co-develop with stakeholders, methods, tools and indicators to monitor and evaluate biodiversity and ecosystem services against operational biodiversity targets at appropriate temporal and spatial scales and governance levels, and establish harmonized sets of data on native biodiversity.
• To develop and implement inspirational narratives to communicate the benefits of biodiversity to farmers, and beyond, and to make available easily accessible information on best practices for integration of biodiversity in farm management.
Our specific objectives are:
• To establish a long-lasting European multi-actor network of Experimental Biodiversity Areas (EBAs) for the development, testing and showcasing, together with farmers, of approaches to effectively integrate biodiversity into farm management across different European landscapes.
• To identify, along a broad gradient of land use from intensification to abandonment, which economic, agro-ecological and social factors incentivise farmers to actively support biodiversity on their farms.
• To establish, with farmers, a strong evidence base on public and private goods, as well as costs, associated with promoting native biodiversity, in a range of European farming systems and socio-economic contexts.
• To co-develop with stakeholders, methods, tools and indicators to monitor and evaluate biodiversity and ecosystem services against operational biodiversity targets at appropriate temporal and spatial scales and governance levels, and establish harmonized sets of data on native biodiversity.
• To develop and implement inspirational narratives to communicate the benefits of biodiversity to farmers, and beyond, and to make available easily accessible information on best practices for integration of biodiversity in farm management.
The multi-actor network of Experimental Biodiversity Areas (EBAs) has successfully been established in 10 European landscapes and has been used to develop and test, together with farmers, approaches to integrate biodiversity into farm management. The (preliminary) findings of biodiversity intervention studies have been presented to farmers and significant progress has been made with the development of key dissemination materials, particularly an illustrated handbook and the development of the roadmap to support longer-term EBA activities.
Analyses of the regulatory and incentive instruments for biodiversity management on farms suggest that there is a need for public policies, including the CAP, to address more specifically the determinants encouraging biodiversity-friendly farm management. Important aspects are culture-specific perspectives, incorporating experiential knowledge and regionally adapted advice on measure implementation and biodiversity impacts. A large-scale survey suggests that for farmers who have already implemented biodiversity interventions on their farms or are willing to establish them, the most important motivation is care for the environment and environmental effectiveness. In contrast, farmers who are generally not willing to establish biodiversity interventions name insufficient financial rewards as the most important reason.
The first studies examining costs as well as the delivery of public and private goods show that promoting native biodiversity may result in private benefits to farmers but that nevertheless trade-offs may occur between farmer income and delivery of public goods. However, effects of biodiversity interventions prove to be highly context dependent and more general conclusions can only be drawn after final results from all EBAs are known.
SHOWCASE has developed biodiversity indicators and approaches to monitor farmland biodiversity. This has been done through (i) methods to estimate habitat quality for flowers and bees using imagery from drones, (ii) a framework to establish thresholds for percentage of semi-natural habitat in agricultural areas to conserve pollinators, (iii) an approach that uses key performance indicators (KPIs) based on easily quantifiable land-use characteristics for large-scale monitoring of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. Finally, SHOWCASE has mapped prevailing farmland conservation narratives in the agro-biodiversity arena which can be used by scientists to have more impact amidst the main narratives used by various stakeholders.
Analyses of the regulatory and incentive instruments for biodiversity management on farms suggest that there is a need for public policies, including the CAP, to address more specifically the determinants encouraging biodiversity-friendly farm management. Important aspects are culture-specific perspectives, incorporating experiential knowledge and regionally adapted advice on measure implementation and biodiversity impacts. A large-scale survey suggests that for farmers who have already implemented biodiversity interventions on their farms or are willing to establish them, the most important motivation is care for the environment and environmental effectiveness. In contrast, farmers who are generally not willing to establish biodiversity interventions name insufficient financial rewards as the most important reason.
The first studies examining costs as well as the delivery of public and private goods show that promoting native biodiversity may result in private benefits to farmers but that nevertheless trade-offs may occur between farmer income and delivery of public goods. However, effects of biodiversity interventions prove to be highly context dependent and more general conclusions can only be drawn after final results from all EBAs are known.
SHOWCASE has developed biodiversity indicators and approaches to monitor farmland biodiversity. This has been done through (i) methods to estimate habitat quality for flowers and bees using imagery from drones, (ii) a framework to establish thresholds for percentage of semi-natural habitat in agricultural areas to conserve pollinators, (iii) an approach that uses key performance indicators (KPIs) based on easily quantifiable land-use characteristics for large-scale monitoring of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. Finally, SHOWCASE has mapped prevailing farmland conservation narratives in the agro-biodiversity arena which can be used by scientists to have more impact amidst the main narratives used by various stakeholders.
At the time SHOWCASE started, the state of the art in biodiversity research suggested that more biodiverse agroecosystems function better and are more productive and resilient. However, most of these studies were not carried out in real-world landscapes and did not consider the costs associated with enhancing biodiversity. SHOWCASE studies are unraveling, for the first time, the net economic consequences of integrating biodiversity into farm management and are showing a more nuanced picture.
Results so far indicate that integrating biodiversity into farm management has concrete benefits, but most of these benefits are public goods from which the farmer does not profit economically. Biodiversity-based private benefits, such as enhanced crop yields, are often outweighed by the costs of enhancing biodiversity. Alternatively, money saved by applying less agro-chemicals is often lost by lower yields resulting ultimately in similar income. This suggests that for farmers that are not inherently motivated to conserve biodiversity, the lack of financial incentives that make biodiversity management on farms competitive with conventional crop production represents a key barrier towards adoption of biodiversity management. It means that integrating biodiversity management on farms is directly related to large-scale drivers of agricultural land-use such as global trade, the agricultural value chain and consumer behaviour as well as agricultural and conservation policies.
SHOWCASE does present and test some promising instruments that can be used to incentivize biodiversity management on farms. A biodiversity-based business model that uses KPIs based on proportional cover of easily quantifiable land-use was shown to be a reliable indicator of farmland biodiversity and farmers demonstrated a high willingness to accept the KPI that was most strongly related to biodiversity. This and similar approaches can be used to operationalize the achievements of biodiversity targets as well as monitor progress towards those targets.
Results so far indicate that integrating biodiversity into farm management has concrete benefits, but most of these benefits are public goods from which the farmer does not profit economically. Biodiversity-based private benefits, such as enhanced crop yields, are often outweighed by the costs of enhancing biodiversity. Alternatively, money saved by applying less agro-chemicals is often lost by lower yields resulting ultimately in similar income. This suggests that for farmers that are not inherently motivated to conserve biodiversity, the lack of financial incentives that make biodiversity management on farms competitive with conventional crop production represents a key barrier towards adoption of biodiversity management. It means that integrating biodiversity management on farms is directly related to large-scale drivers of agricultural land-use such as global trade, the agricultural value chain and consumer behaviour as well as agricultural and conservation policies.
SHOWCASE does present and test some promising instruments that can be used to incentivize biodiversity management on farms. A biodiversity-based business model that uses KPIs based on proportional cover of easily quantifiable land-use was shown to be a reliable indicator of farmland biodiversity and farmers demonstrated a high willingness to accept the KPI that was most strongly related to biodiversity. This and similar approaches can be used to operationalize the achievements of biodiversity targets as well as monitor progress towards those targets.