Highlights of the GEWISOLA conference from a social-ecological perspective
Food systems and land use change were intensively discussed during the 2023 GEWISOLA conference. Join Lauren Schnor from our group “Social-ecological Interactions in Agricultural Systems” as she takes stock of the conference highlights — including peatlands, bison, and powerful maps.
The 63rd annual conference of GEWISOLA (Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften des Landbaues e.V.) with the theme “Sustainable Food Systems and Land Use Change” recently took place at the Georg-August-University in Göttingen, from 20 to 22 September 2023. Around 200 participants from different universities and research institutes of Europe were welcomed by the University and its co-hosts — the University of Kassel and the Hochschule Osnabrück.
“This was my very first GEWISOLA conference and I was curious to see how it would evolve.”
Early on Wednesday morning, the first participants slowly arrived and gathered around the coffee tables in the foyer of the central lecture building. Many already knew each other, it seemed, as they greeted each other and chatted over coffee, before the event’s official start.
Mixed Pastoral System: A nature conservation and sustainability solution?
The pre-conference workshop “Socio-ecological Perspectives on Mixed Pastoral Systems in Light of Sustainability and Nature Conservation” was the first highlight. Despite the early Wednesday morning hour, it was already well attended. It seemed to me that many people were looking forward to the start of the conference.
“The overall aim of the workshop was to synthesise knowledge on social-ecological aspects of agro- and silvo-pastoral systems in the light of nature conservation regimes.”
Five speakers gave short presentations on grazing systems from different perspectives, followed by a discussion: Junior Professor Dr. Antje Risius (University of Göttingen) began with an overview of the status quo of social-ecological trade-offs between animal husbandry and nature conservation.
Ekaterina Stampa (University of Kassel) continued with a study on consumer preferences for animal welfare and nature conservation. She emphasised that good communication of the social-ecological benefits of products is essential to inform consumers, potentially increasing their willingness to pay and thereby contributing to the products’ economic sustainability. Dr. Elsa Varela (University of Göttingen) shared a case study on meat production in Mediterranean silvo-pastoral systems and how these systems can contribute to wildfire prevention. Such systems can increase fire resilience, she explained, by reducing the biomass and maintaining a mosaic landscape structure.
Dr. Brianne Altmann’s case from North America, focused on the restoration of bison in Canada and their potential as a sustainable meat source. Hunting, the introduction of domesticated livestock and governmental policy have led to a reduction in the bison population. By the end of the 19th century only 300 to 400 bisons were left although they have been crucial as non-human landscape managers. Especially indigenous communities have been investing in returning bison to their natural habitat on indigenous lands. The penal’s final presentation was by Severin Hübner (Thünen Institute) on animal co-grazing, where broilers and cattle graze simultaneously on the same land. Since 2022, the culling of male chicks is forbidden in Germany which calls for ethical solutions for the question: ‘What to do with the male chicks?’. The mixed-system of broilers and cattle might be a potential answer.
“Each presentation was focused on a very specific niche of grazing. Yet, they fit together perfectly giving a broad picture of grazing systems and their potentials and challenges.”
The discussant PD Dr. Katharina Lange (Leibniz Centre of Modern Orient) skilfully synthesised the presentations, by concluding that cross-cultural learning from different traditions and knowledges around human-ecological interactions can assist in creating sustainable futures for all.
Looking ahead, the workshop speakers plan to form a thinktank of young researchers in nature conservation and agriculture, to host regular meetings and exchanges. The thinktank will be meeting and hosting a seminar with Anthony Blair Dreaver Johnston at the end of October. Anyone interested is very much invited to join them (contact: brianne.altmann@agr.uni-goettingen.de). It is great to see that the speakers plan to continue working together, beyond the conference event.
Keynotes, food systems, and powerful maps
The pre-conference workshop built up anticipation for other events of the three-day conference.
The keynote speeches on Wednesday evening were a must for many. Four interesting speakers took the stage: Prof. Dr. Britta Renner (University of Konstanz), Prof. Dr. Matin Qaim (University of Bonn), Prof. Dr. Peter H. Verburg (University of Amsterdam) and Prof. Dr. David Wüpper (University of Bonn).
The keynote speech by Prof. Dr. Peter H. Verburg (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands) was the highlight, from a social-ecological perspective. He challenged the audience to reflect on which land use supports a sustainable food system, and addressed the multiple interactions between food systems and land use at global and local scale. In his presentation he included powerful maps, illustrating the intensification of food production and its impact on biodiversity across Europe.
“A key takeaway was how these dynamics are very context-specific, and that we have to navigate trade-offs of biodiversity conservation and food production and identify priority locations.”
Almost always when increasing food production, it comes to a trade-off with biodiversity. However, this is very place-sensitive. Local contexts are of great importance, he emphasised, as they determine potentials and constraints for food system transformations.
He also looked at the ‘option space’ between agricultural land and green infrastructure, emphasising that each agricultural hectare needs around 25% of semi-natural land around it, for pollination and pest control to work. Navigating the trade-offs within the available option space requires consideration of many actors within the agri-food network and going beyond the farmer-policymaker nexus is critical. Farmers are usually part of a larger network consisting of banks, consumers, supermarkets and academia, all of which play a role in shaping decisions.
Debating the future of peatland re-wetting
The final conference highlight was the dynamic and cooperative panel discussion on rewetting of peatlands. In former times, the drainage of peatlands was promoted and even financially supported to convert these lands into productive agricultural farmland. Nowadays, in the face of climate change, attention is being redirected in the opposite direction: Peatlands are receiving increasing attention, as the rewetting of drained areas could mitigate up to one-third of agricultural CO2 emissions equivalents in Germany. In a region where more than 90% of the peatlands have been drained, peatland restoration through rewetting appears to be one of the most significant contributions to mitigating climate change. I was quite surprised to hear that even though peatlands only cover about 3% of the earth, they store twice as much carbon as all forests on this planet.
Dr. Holger Hennies (Landvolk Lower Saxony), Prof. Dr. Gerald Jurasinski (University of Greifswald), Bernhard Osterburg (Thuenen Institute) and Dr. Elena Maria Zydek (Project Klimafarm) all contributed unique solution-oriented perspectives on how rewetting of peatlands can — and needs to — take place for the advancement of sustainable development. All discussants agreed that rewetting does not present a conflict between agriculture and nature conservation. Rather, there are win-win opportunities as long as a bottom-up approach is pursued.
“Large-scale restoration of peatlands is a societal challenge almost larger than Germany’s phase out of lignite mining”, said Prof. Dr. Gerald Jasinski.
We need teamwork and collaboration with rural municipalities, farmers and nature conservation groups, throughout the discussion and in decisions of where, how, and when to rewet. This will undoubtedly reshape the farmland and its economies in Northern Germany. At our research chair, we are concurrently engaged in a project that delves into the intrinsic values of peatlands and the myriad advantages they offer. We are particularly interested to understand which values and benefits people associate with peatlands and how the conversion of agricultural land into peatlands is perceived by the people who live and work in peatland regions.
Prized presentations and Christian Stetter’s dissertation on “Agricultural Production and Environmental Change”
The GEWISOLA annually honours outstanding presentations and student achievements. This year, Dr. Christian Stetter (ETH, Switzerland) received the GEWISOLA prize for the best dissertation on the topic “Agricultural Production and Environmental Change: An Economic Investigation”. The communication prize was awarded to Imke Edebohls, Dr. Susanne Padel, Dr. Zazie von Davier (all Thuenen Institute), Anika Bolten, Dr. Christine Niens and Dagmar Wicklow (all University of Göttingen) for the joint project “The living and working conditions of women on farms in Germany”.
A poster exhibition was accessible for the participants to view on their own and during a guided poster session. Three posters were awarded the best poster prize: Nils Ludwig Langanke and Prof. Dr. Uwe Latacz-Lohmann (University of Kiel) received an award for their poster on the topic “Klimaschutz durch Moorschutz: Determinanten der Teilnahmebereitschaft von Landwirten an Moorschutzprogrammen“; Charlotte Bühner, Dr. Sara Kühl and Junior Professor Dr. Dominic Lemken (University of Göttingen and Bonn) for their contribution “Messung der Zahlungsbereitschaft für Eier aus verschiedenen Haltungssystemen mittels eines ‘Discrete-choice-Experimentes’“; and Lisa Höschle and Prof. Dr. Xiaohua Yu (University of Göttingen) for their exihibit „Food Price Dynamics in OECD Countries — Evidence on Clusters and Predictors from Machine Learning”.
The conference participants could also vote for the best presentations: Laura Hellstern, Dr. Beate Gebhardt and Prof. Dr. Sebastian Hess (University of Hohnheim) held a great presentation on “Sustainability Excellence in Light of German Farmers’ Self-Assessment: Results from a Mixed Methods Study”. Prof. Dr. Uwe Latacz-Lohmann (University of Kiel), Insa Thiermann (University of Wageningen, Netherlands) and Daniel Schröder (University of Kiel) stood for the talk “Wie stehen deutsche Landwirte zu einem Stilllegungsprogramm für Schweineställe?”. Prof. Dr. Torben Tiedemann (University of Kiel) and Prof. Dr. Jan-Henning Feil (Hochschule Soest) were honoured for their presentation „Subventionierung durch die Umsatzsteuerpauschalisierung in der Landwirtschaft? — Eine Analyse auf Basis von einzelbetrieblichen Jahresabschlussdaten“.
From economic theory to interdisciplinary exchange
The 2023 GEWISOLA annual conference provided a great opportunity to discuss the important topics of food systems and land use change from different perspectives, and to meet researchers working on similar topics. Personally speaking, it was a great experience to attend this conference and to see how it has evolved from focusing on neoclassical economic theory in the past, to a space for more holistic interdisciplinary discussions on land use and food systems dynamics.
Further reading
A detailed analysis of the European agri-food networks by the keynote speaker Peter H. Verburg and his colleagues: Williams, T.G., Bui, S., Conti, C., Debonne, N., Levers, C., Swart, R., & Verburg, P.H. (2023). Synthesising the diversity of European agri-food networks. A meta-study of actors and power-laden interactions. Global Environmental Change, 83, 102746. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102746
An interesting experiment on the behaviour of co-grazing of cattle and broiler by the pre-conference-speaker Severin Hübner and colleagues: Schanz, L., Hintze, S., Hübner, S., Barth, K., & Winckler, C. (2022). Single- and multi-species groups: A descriptive study on cattle and broiler behaviour on pasture. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 257, 105779. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2022.10577 9
“Carbon Sink or Carbon Source? A Guided Tour through Peat Landscape in Transformation”, a blog post by Claudia Heindorf: https://medium.com/people-nature-landscapes/a-small-tour-through-the-wietingsmoor-a-cultural-peat-landscape-under-transformation-7aa49578ee7c
“Socio-Ecological Win-Wins from Extensive Animal Farming”, a blog post by Brianne Altmann: https://medium.com/people-nature-landscapes/socio-ecological-win-wins-from-extensive-animal-farming-cb00a59ec7ac
