Promoting Biodiversity Collaboratively: Lessons learned from agricultural cooperation
Over the last few decades, biodiversity has been significantly declining in European agricultural landscapes. This is mainly the result of intensified land management, linked to the increased use of pesticides and fertilisers, as well as to habitat degradation.
Agri-environmental and climate measures (AECM) are a prominent means to improve environmental conditions and support biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. However, coordinated efforts to strengthen multi-actor cooperation and dialogue can be beneficial for their successful implementation.
As part of the rural development measures of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), AECM provide payments for improving environmental conditions in terms of environmentally friendly farming techniques and biodiversity protection.
There is a variety of AECM, such as
- organic farming,
- extensive management of permanent grassland,
- the maintenance of undersown crops and catch crops over winter, and
- non-productive measures, which include the implementation of different types of flower and protective strips as well as hedges.
Since AECM are voluntary in nature, farmers can decide on their own whether they would like to implement them on their land or not. In fact, farmers’ decisions regarding AECM implementation are strongly determined by legal regulations, financial compensation, former management experiences as well as personal preferences and attitudes.
Frequently, AECM are implemented on less productive and marginal plots, which are difficult to manage for large machinery. Ecological effects are then limited to these relatively isolated areas without supporting habitat connectivity. However, the natural environments of a variety of common species in agricultural landscapes exceed the borders of the area managed by a single farm.
Therefore, not the single farm, but the landscape seems to be the appropriate scale to protect biodiversity.
From a farmers’ viewpoint, landscape-scale implementation means collaborative action with other farming actors. Thus, it is tightly linked to communication and coordination of management decisions and biodiversity goals.
The ‘Dutch cooperative approach’
One prominent example of agricultural collaboration in the EU is the ‘Dutch cooperative approach’. In 2016, the Dutch government replaced single-farm implementation of AECM by collective measures: With this decision, a regionalisation of biodiversity goals, the simplification of administration and the empowerment of already well-established networks of agri-environmental cooperation were intended (Ministry of Economic Affairs 2016). Therefore, 40 agri-environmental cooperatives were founded, covering the entire countryside of the Netherlands.
Based on a so-called ‘front-door-back-door principle’, the cooperatives are responsible for all administrative tasks and advisory services.
Cooperatives sign result-based contracts with the national authorities at the front door. As part of these contracts, regional biodiversity goals and management actions are set. The contracts typically last six years.
The backdoor, on the other hand, is when cooperatives sign private contracts with farmers in which specific payment rates and field-level management actions are regulated. For all contracts, regional fine-tuning ensures adjustments of conservation targets and payments rates.
Cooperatives in the spotlight: social capital
From a social point of view, cooperation among farmers offers benefits concerning the so-called social capital (Prager 2015; Westerink et al. 2017). This relates to the ability to exchange experiences and knowledge with other actors. Farmers are able to support each other immediately if any problems or questions arise. Cooperation can increase actors’ joint thinking and actioning as well as their feelings of being responsible for something important — e.g. for preserving the local rural identity.
Achieved improvements can make farmers feel proud and support long-term participation.
However, when asked about perceptions regarding agricultural cooperation, farmers also see obstacles (Taylor & Van Grieken 2015; Franks et al. 2016). These mainly concern issues with neighboring farmers and their management techniques and fears of additional controls, bureaucracy overload, as well as economic impairments — particularly reduced productivity.
Interestingly, none of these problems proved to be unsolvable — farmers’ perceptions change when they actually work together (Franks 2014). In order to achieve a successful cooperative process, it is key to ensure the presence of a well-organised coordinating organisation, which is responsible for bringing farmers together and for resolving conflicts.
Conclusion
Agricultural collaborations appear to hold promise in strengthening farmers’ relationships and their networks for sharing knowledge and skills. However, as systematic research on the success of cooperative approaches is currently quite limited, a proper monitoring and evaluation is key in order to derive lessons learnt and further refine the design of the cooperation processes.
When it comes to cooperative approaches, we must also consider farmers’ basic willingness to cooperate, the possibilities for coordination and the environmental and economic consequences of agricultural cooperation.
These issues are central to our KOOPERATIV project. With this, we aim to implement and evaluate AECM at the landscape level, based on an multi-level participatory approach.
Interested in reading more? Stay connected: In a follow-up post, I will provide deeper insights into the KOOPERATIV project soon.
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.
Franks, J. 2014. An Application of Boundary Organisation Theory to Develop Landscape-scale Conservation in Formal Agri-environment Schemes. Sociologia Ruralis, 56(1):48–73.
Franks, J., S. Emery, M. Whittingham & A. McKenzie. 2016. Farmer attitudes to cross-holding agri-environment schemes and their implications for Countryside Stewardship . The design of cross-holding, collaborative environmental management schemes: a UK farm. Agricultural Management, 5:78–95.
Ministry of Economic Affairs 2016. The cooperative approach under the new Dutch agri-environment-climate scheme. Background, procedures and legal and institutional implications. Avaiable online: https://enrd.ec.europa.eu/sites/enrd/files/w12_collective-approach_nl.pdf.
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.
Prager, K. (2015). Agri-environmental collaboratives for landscape management in Europe. Curr. Opin. Environ.Sustainability,12: 59–66.
Taylor, B.M. Van Grieken, M. (2015). Local institutions and farmer participation in agri-environmental schemes. J. Rural Stud., 37:10–19.
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.
