KOOPERATIV: A Participatory Landscape Experiment
Agricultural cooperation is receiving increasing attention, since it offers an opportunity to better meet the habitat needs of numerous species in agricultural landscapes. However, extensive collaborations in the context of agricultural landscapes often remain limited — as in Germany.
The forthcoming project KOOPERATIV explores the potentials of multi-level agricultural cooperation to implement Agri-environmental and climate measures (AECM) — together with municipal officials, conservationists, and farmers.
Over the last few years, several collaborative initiatives have been arising in Europe. In Germany, this development is hindered mainly due to the management tradition of single-farm implementation and the lack of suitable structures for organisational and spatial coordination.
As the coordinator of KOOPERATIV, I am excited to experience a participatory process from its roots.
AECM and multi-actor cooperation
Since I am particularly interested in understanding human-nature relations, I am keen on the idea of strengthening multi-actor cooperation in order to create shared knowledge and support biodiversity. In an agricultural context, AECM —including organic farming, the extensive management of permanent grassland, or the implementation of flower strips — seem to be a promising tool for this purpose: They are commonly used by farmers, and there is a variety of evidence indicating their effectiveness.
However, a suitable design of AECM that addresses biodiversity issues on the landscape level, and appropriate financial incentives for land managers seem to be just as important as making use of the experiences, knowledge and strengths of community members involved. Particularly in rural communities, boundaries among municipal governance, farming and nature conservation are quite blurred, as community members might take over several roles at once.
In order to appropriately take into account the local circumstances and to make individual choices valuable, multi-actor participation should be in focus.
The KOOPERATIV project
KOOPERATIV aims to support these ambitions based on the example of the collaborative implementation of perennial flower strips in Lower Saxony, Germany.
As one of the most prominent AECM, perennial flower strips are based on five-year contracts and follow management guidelines at the federal-state level, such as predefined widths, seed mixtures and maintenance practices. Since ploughing is not allowed during the contract period, perennial flower strips remain relatively undisturbed and offer valuable food and wintering habitats as well as shelter to multiple species.
The study region
The KOOPERATIV study region is the district of Northeim, located at the centre of Germany. This region is characteristic for central European agricultural landscapes: It comprises arable land, grassland, near-natural habitats and forests in different area proportions, and hosts a variety of agricultural enterprises, which utilise 84% of farmland for cultivation and more than 33% for animal husbandry (Dahl 2011).
Moreover, established participatory formats provide spaces for local experts to engage in community decision-making processes. One of these is the so-called ‘Round table for species diversity’ in the municipality of Uslar. The Round table is a local, multi-actor committee of city representatives, farmers and nature conservationists that organises and conducts projects for the support of biodiversity.
However, how can the collaborative implementation of perennial flower strips be performed and evaluated in the district of Northeim?
The KOOPERATIV project pursues this question along the lines of three working packages — Ecology, Economy and Governance. Therein, we will analyse ecological effects, the economic consequences for participating farming enterprises, and pivotal framework conditions for collaborative measure implementation.
A landscape experiment
Accompanied by such scientific analyses and participatory processes, flower strips will be implemented throughout the district in a participatory experiment at landscape level. For this, flower-strip areas of different sizes and arrangements will be created in order to find out what design shows the best results in terms of ecological effects and cost efficiency.
Target species groups (e.g. pollinators) will be analysed with regards to temporal changes in their abundance, species richness, and functional diversity, as well as ecosystem services.
For economic analysis, farming enterprises will be surveyed and cost components such as transaction costs and opportunity costs will be calculated.
In order to shed light on relevant conditions that support or hinder the successful implementation of collaborative measures, individual views of participating actors and Round table discussions will be analysed, based on a mixture of qualitative and quantitative participatory research methods.
Current activities: building networks, identifying landscapes
KOOPERATIV started in July 2020 with a one-year pre-phase to pave the way for a seven-year follow-up project. To prepare the participatory processes, local networks have been created among land managers, nature conservationists and municipality officials. Furthermore, the landscape experiment has been prepared: Farmers were contacted and potential areas for measure implementation were discussed.
Moreover, we are planning to establish further Round tables. These local panels are meant to provide spaces for discussion and exchange between farmers and other community members, thus for transfers of knowledge and experiences regarding the implementation of flower strips and aspects of nature conservation. In cooperation with municipality officials, strategies for raising social awareness can also be specified here.
Outlook: Next steps and expected results
As part of the main project, perennial flower-strip implementation as well as ecological, economic and socio-ecological evaluation will take place. So far, the interest in and support for the project by local communities in the district of Northeim is impressive.
Based on this local commitment, we intend to create a regionalised approach for the design and implementation of cooperative AECM at the landscape level — taking into account the interrelations between ecology, economics and governance as well as the role of local communities for applying, distributing and maintaining the developed knowledge.
For further information, visit the KOOPERATIV website.
Stay connected with People • Nature • Landscapes to receive news on the course of the project.
We would like to thank the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU) for funding our one-year pre-project. We would also like to express our special thanks to the city of Uslar and the Landvolk Northeim-Osterode KBV e.V. for supporting our project and for the fruitful cooperation.
Further Reading / References:
Batáry, P., L. V. Dicks, D. Kleijn & Sutherland, W. J. 2015. The role of agri-environment schemes in conservation and environmental management. Conservation Biology, 29:1006–1016.
Dahl, S. 2011. Landwirtschaftliche Unternehmen oder baeuerliche Betriebe? — Agrarstruktur in Niedersachsen. Statistische Monatshefte Niedersachsen, 9:504–513.
Pe’er, G., A. Bonn, H. Bruelheide, P. Dieker, N. Eisenhauer, P. H. Feindt, G. Hagedorn, B. Hansjürgens, I. Herzon, Â. Lomba, E. Marquard, F. Moreira, H. Nitsch, R. Oppermann, A. Perino, N. Röder, C. Schleyer, S. Schindler, C. Wolf, Y. Zinngreben & Lakner, S. 2020. Action needed for the EU Common Agricultural Policy to address sustainability challenges. People and Nature, 2:305–316.
Westerink, J., R. Jongeneel, N. Polman, K. Prager, J. Franks, P. Dupraz & Mettepenningen, E. 2017. Collaborative governance arrangements to deliver spatially coordinated agri-environmental management. Land Use Policy, 69:176–192.
