Effects of Flower-Enriched Ecological Focus Areas on Functional Diversity Across Scales

Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs) to benefit biodiversity became mandatory in intensively farmed landscapes after the reform of the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2013. The implementation of EFAs as uncropped field margins has been criticized as ineffective but created a window of opportunity to test if augmenting them with annual flower strips can benefit biodiversity. In this study, we investigated if annual flower strips on EFAs benefited functional biodiversity in intensively farmed landscapes. To this end we established eleven annual flower strips with a seed mixture targeted for both natural enemies and pollinators, on areas were farmers had planned for EFAs. We determined effects on aphids and their natural enemies in cereal fields close to six of the flower strips, and for solitary bees and wasp close to and in the surroundings of all eleven flower strips. We found that annual flower strips benefited the abundance of hoverfly larvae and possibly also that of solitary bees. However, there were neither any significant effects on natural enemies (other than hoverfly larvae), nor any difference in natural pest control as shown by lack of differences in aphid numbers and parazitation rates. Abundances of solitary bees and wasps in the surrounding landscapes were unaffected, although there was a tendency for more solitary bee cells closer to the strips. We suggest that the critical issue leading to the mostly negative results is the lack of permanent structures to sustain populations of arthropods that in turn can benefit from annual flower strips. Hence, future agri-environmental policies need to carefully consider if and how annual agri-environmental measures should be implemented in intensively managed agricultural landscapes, e.g., by combining them with more permanent structures.

Is the Greening Instrument a Valid Precedent for the New Green Architecture of the CAP? The Case of Spain

The Common Agricultural Policy 2014–2020, set up in 2015 and extended until 31 December 2022, introduced a payment instrument called Greening. The aim of Greening was to encourage agricultural practices that are beneficial for the environment while also contributing to economic and territorial dynamism. The purpose of this article is to study the effect that Greening has had in Spain. We consider five difference-in-difference models, one for each of the variables proposed: ecological focus areas, permanent grasslands over utilised agricultural area, CO2 emissions stemming from agricultural land use changes and the presence of woody crops, agricultural income, and affiliates of the special agricultural regime. The data used come from the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food, the Ministry for Inclusion, Social Security, and Migrations, and the Spanish Emissions Inventory System. For the diff-in diff estimations, we use Spain’s regions as control and treatment units from 2011 to 2018, the aim being to provide observations ex ante Greening (2011–2014) and ex post (2015–2018). The results show that Greening had a limited impact, questioning its efficiency for meeting its goal, and that it is not a sound precedent for building the new green architecture of the CAP.

Will Farmers Accept Lower Gross Margins for the Sustainable Cultivation Method of Mixed Cropping? First Insights from Germany

A decline in the legume cultivation has contributed to the biodiversity loss within the agricultural production across Europe. One possibility to include legumes into the production and promote sustainability is mixed cropping with legumes and non-legumes. However, the adoption of mixed cropping is challenging for farmers and information about the profitability is scarce. If mixed cropping should become a widely established production method, it is essential to gain an understanding of famers’ evaluation of the profitability mixed cropping needs to reach. Therefore, this article provides first empirical insights into farmers stated willingness to accept gross margin changes compared to current production possibilities. Based on a survey with results from 134 German non-adopters conducted in 2018 we can distinguish conventional farmers with a positive, neutral and negative willingness to accept reductions in gross margins as the trade-off for ecological benefits. Using an ordered logistic model we find that risk attitude, risk perception, the number of measures performed for ecological focus areas, the farmer’s age and being located in the south of Germany influence their willingness to accept gross margin changes compared to currently produced cereals.

Factors influencing German farmer’s decision to grow alley cropping systems as ecological focus areas: a regression analysis

The cultivation of alley cropping agricultural wood is an opportunity to comply with the greening requirements of the common agricultural policy (CAP; 2014-2020), but farmers are not permitted to display the whole alley cropping system (ACS) as ecological focus area (EFA) in Germany. They can display the agricultural wood stripes separately as EFA instead. The willingness of farmers is of key importance for a successful establishment, but, so far, the acceptance of this greening measure is extremely low. The aim of this paper is therefore to point out factors which have linkages to the acceptance of ACS as EFAs by conducting an online survey among German conventional farmers. The results of the regression analysis show that factors such as attitude towards agricultural wood, level of professional education, location and social environment affect the acceptance of ACS as EFA. To conclude, starting points that promote this type of greening measure are identified.

ROLE OF CAP GREENING IN FARMERS` DECISION-MAKING

CAP Greening is an important part of the sustainable development of scarce resources, conservation of habitats and species diversity. The aim of the study is to examine the role of mandatory requirements resulting from the CAP greening for farm development and environmental conservation. Analysis of available literature data on the CAP greening direct payments was conducted in order to highlight environmentally friendly agricultural practices. The results show that climate and environmentally friendly agrucultural practices are set out in three groups as follows: crop diversification, maintenance of permanent grassland and maintaining minimum 5% of the farming's area as ecological focus areas. In conclusion, farmers should consider these activities during the decision-making process at farm level and have to comply with the mandatory requirements of cross-compliance.

Integrated Assessment of the EU’s Greening Reform and Feed Self-Sufficiency Scenarios on Dairy Farms in Piemonte, Italy

Specialised dairy farms are challenged to be competitive and yet respect environmental constrains. A tighter integration of cropping and livestock systems, both in terms of feed and manure flows, can be beneficial for the farm economy and the environment. The greening of the direct payments, which was introduced in the European Union’s greening reform in 2013, is assumed to stimulate the transition towards more sustainable systems. The aim of this study was to quantitatively assess the impacts of greening policies on important economic and environmental indicators of sustainability, and explore potential further improvements in policies. The Farm System SIMulator (FSSIM) bioeconomic farm model was used to simulate the consequences of scenarios of policy change on three representative dairy farms in Piedmont, Italy, i.e., an ‘intensive’, an ‘extensive’, and an ‘organic’ dairy farm. Results showed that in general, there is a large potential to increase the current economic performance of all of the farms. The most profitable activity is milk production, resulting in the allocation of all of the available farm land to feed production. Imposing feed self-sufficiency targets results in a larger adaptation of current managerial practice than the adaptations that are required due to the greening policy scenario. It was shown that the cropping system is not always able to sustain the actual herd composition when 90% feed self-sufficiency is imposed. Regarding the greening policies, it is shown that extensive and organic farms already largely comply with the greening constrains, and the extra subsidy is therefore a bonus, while the intensive farm is likely to sacrifice the subsidy, as adapting the farm plan will substantially reduce profit. The introduction of nitrogen (N)-fixing crops in ecological focus areas was the easiest greening strategy to adopt, and led to an increase in the protein feed self-sufficiency. In conclusion, it is important to note that the greening policy in its current form does not lead to reduced environmental impacts. This implies that in order to improve environmental performance, regulations are needed rather than voluntary economic incentives.

The Evaluation of Implementation of Agricultural Sustainable Development Policy in the European Union

Author tries to evaluate two elements of implementation of agricultural sustainable development policy in the European Union. Those elements are: “greening” and European innovation partnership. Greening is carried out by: crop diversification, maintenance of permanent grassland (PG), maintenance of ecological focus areas (EFA). Diversification of crops was carried out for three fourth of areas of arable lands in the EU. Diversification prevents soil erosion. Share of PG in the overall area of agricultural land in the EU is 29 %. The highest indicator is at present in the United Kingdom (90%), and the lowest in Cyprus, Malta, Denmark and Finland. From the set of actions maintaining the pro-environmental areas (EFA), the most popular were: setting aside (27 member states), and the least popular – afforestation (only 11 countries). When it comes to EFA area, the biggest share was the area for legume plants. New pro-environmental instrument is European Innovation Partnership for productive and sustainable agriculture. There has already been some results of this action in the EU countries.