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Project

Options for the greening of intensive agricultural landscapes: Integrating multiple perspectives

Intensive agriculture puts a lot of pressure on biodiversity, through the alteration, degradation, fragmentation, and loss of natural ecosystems. These processes have accelerated substantially in the last few centuries due to the expansion and intensification of food production systems, as such contributing to the biodiversity crisis the world is currently facing. Society is strongly dependent on the diversity of organisms and ecosystems through the many benefits they provide in the form of ecosystem services. At the same time, people need the food produced on agricultural land by farmers who continuously try to improve their own livelihoods. Governments and other institutions at multiple levels (local, regional, national, EU, worldwide) develop and adapt policies that aim to minimize the negative environmental impact of food production and maximize the socio-economic benefits of agricultural systems. However, the complexity of the social and ecological systems in which the food production systems are embedded makes it rather difficult to find solutions that optimize the various objectives of all relevant stakeholders.

In this research, we applied a social-ecological systems approach to the rural landscape, in order to identify relevant stakeholders, their respective objectives, capacities and limitations, and the interdependencies between these social actors and the environmental components of agricultural and (semi-)natural ecosystems. We focused on three relevant actor types: farmers, non-farmer citizens, and the government. In four studies, we assessed the factors that influence the preferences and decisions of these actors and the possible consequences of these decisions, such as the impact on social relations, economic wellbeing, and environmental quality. The research was applied to the case study of apple orchards and semi-natural grasslands in Flanders, Belgium. Flemish apple orchards are strongly concentrated in the rural regions of Hageland and Hesbaye, which facilitated data collection and modelling efforts. Most research on the environmental impact of food production in temperate regions has primarily covered arable cropping systems. However, the multi-layered and three-dimensional structure of quasi-permanent orchards allows for the development of a richer and more diverse ecosystem compared to arable cropland. There is also substantial variation in management intensity across orchards, amongst others because of the relatively large proportion of organic fruit farms, which enables detailed assessments of the impacts of intensification. The selection of this case study of apple production in Flanders also facilitated the development and assessment of relevant policy scenarios. These scenarios are mainly based on the Flemish agricultural policy (within the larger framework of the European Common Agricultural Policy, CAP) and more specifically on agri-environmental measures (AEMs) and organic farming. Since the launch of the European Green Deal, and specifically the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies, and the reform of the CAP after 2020 coincided with the timing of this research, special attention is paid to the targets and regulations of these policies.

First, we assessed the public demand for the implementation of AEMs in fruit orchards through an online survey including a discrete choice experiment. The data was analyzed using a state-of-the art hybrid choice model based on the environmental consciousness framework. The results indicated that citizens express substantial support for farmers who implement AEMs, but also display a large heterogeneity of preferences for specific AEMs, favoring mechanical weeding practices and conservation efforts for bees. Whereas a pro-environmental attitude was a relevant determinant for some of these preferences, both objective and subjective knowledge had little influence. Heterogeneous preferences and attitudes combined with rather low levels of awareness concerning these practices may pose challenges in gathering societal support for agri-environmental policies.

Next, an optimization model was developed for the maximization of biodiversity, farmer income, and apple production in a synthetic landscape of all apple orchards in the Hageland and Hesbaye regions. The model reflects the complex task faced by governmental actors to find optimal land use configurations at the landscape scale. We integrated data from field observations of bee and true bug species, farm accountancy data, and market data on apple prices and production volumes. We identified a range of policy scenarios that alter the shares of organic and conventional orchards and semi-natural grasslands and assessed how this would affect the three objectives (biodiversity, farmer income and apple production). The objectives were evaluated using multiple criteria, which provided a nuanced assessment of the scenarios. Sparing a substantial proportion of the landscape (i.e., converting 30% of the orchards to semi-natural grasslands) resulted in highest biodiversity levels and could simultaneously yield economic benefits. The share of organic farming had limited impact on biodiversity, but could further result in increased farmer income, due to smaller production volumes of conventional apples and subsequently higher prices for both organic and conventional produce.

Third, the aim was to gain insights on how farmers perceive their environmental, social, and institutional context in relation to agri-environmental policies, with a focus on organic farming. Face-to-face interviews with a limited but varied set of farmers were qualitatively analyzed following an integrated framework on collective action. This framework was obtained by combining two complementary frameworks from the literature, i.e., the Institutional Analysis and Development framework and the Institutional Collective Action framework. As such, we determined how the farmers take environmental, social, institutional, economic, agronomic, personal and farm structure factors into account when making decisions on adopting, implementing and (dis)continuing organic farming. The study emphasized the importance of perceived collaboration risks and their impact on expected benefits, the relevance of investigating farmers’ (lack of) involvement in higher levels of decision-making, and the relative importance of and possible relationships between collateral and target outcome variables. In addition, the results indicate that the decisions for adoption, implementation, and (dis)continuation of organic farming are influenced by different sets of factors.

Finally, building on the results of the preceding chapters, an agent-based model was developed to simulate the decision-making on adoption of organic farming for a population of farmers. The decision-making algorithm combined the output of a discrete choice experiment from the literature with theory to incorporate the influence of both institutional factors (contract characteristics) and social network effects (influence from peers and social norms). We simulated multiple policy-relevant scenarios and assessed for their effects on adoption levels, budget requirements, and impact on biodiversity at orchard and landscape scales. Results indicate that increasing incentives to increase the adoption of organic farming comes with (substantial) additional budgetary costs. On the other hand, (rather limited) increased adoption levels do not result in substantial biodiversity improvements. This illustrates that similar modeling efforts should always include adequate ecological submodels. Network effects were found to be highly relevant when social relationships between farmers were strong, which should be further investigated.

Through the application of multiple methodologies, integrating data from a variety of sources, and using a multi-disciplinary approach to the evaluation of agri-environmental policies, we showed that rural landscapes should be considered as complex adaptive social-ecological systems. Explicitly accounting for the large number of relationships within and between the social and ecological subsystems seems appropriate for achieving a full picture of the impact and effectiveness of interventions in those systems. Such research efforts should also pay attention to the social and economic aspects of agri-environmental policies, which are strongly connected with the environmental components through ecosystem services and the trade-offs between objectives of heterogeneous stakeholders. In this research, we gained a better understanding of the differences and overlaps of the perspectives of these stakeholders. This is essential to develop a constructive plan for the much-needed improvement of the environmental and socio-economic conditions of intensively managed rural landscapes. As such, we provide guidelines for further research and recommendations for policy-makers.

Date:1 Nov 2018 →  2 Oct 2023
Keywords:Land sharing versus land sparing, Fruit production, Ecosystem services, Farm economy
Disciplines:Agriculture, land and farm management, Applied economics, Economic development, innovation, technological change and growth
Project type:PhD project