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Over the centuries, specific farming practices shaped permanent grasslands in mountains. With socioeconomic change, farming practices have changed and with them the landscape. Over time, food production has been increasingly decoupled from the preservation of permanent grassland, endangering the delivery of crucial ecosystem services. This contribution looks into the role of institutions-including normative, regulative and cultural-cognitive elements-in preserving current bundles of ecosystem services provided by mountain grasslands. In particular, we investigate how such institutions affect farmers' management choices. Based on a review of scientific literature and empirical data from three case studies, we compare institutions in Austria, France and Norway. The cases represent different modes of multi-level governance (EU and non-EU), different grassland management practices, linked to different farming systems (dairy, breeding, rearing of heifers, suckler cow and sheep production) and different socioeconomic conditions. The results underpin that ecological insights into the impact of farming practices on the ecology of grassland need to be combined with an understanding of the complex institutional interactions that affect farming practices, to ensure the resilience of mountain grasslands. If the design of regulatory measures considers both changing dynamics, it may enable farms to adapt and transform while maintaining traditional grassland management practices.

This article discusses the economic dimensions of agroecological farming systems in Europe. It firstly theoretically elaborates the reasons why, and under what conditions, agroecological farming systems have the potential to produce higher incomes than farms that follow the conventional logic. This theoretical exposition is then followed by a presentation of empirical material from a wide range of European countries that shows the extent to which this potential is being realized. The empirical data draw upon different styles of farming that can be described as 'proto-agroecological': approaches to farming that are agroecological by nature, but which may not necessarily explicitly define themselves as agroecological. The empirical material that we present shows the huge potential and radical opportunities that Europe's, often silent, 'agroecological turn' offers to farmers that could (and should) be the basis for the future transformation of European agricultural policies, since agroecology not only allows for more sustainable production of healthier food but also considerably improves farmers' incomes. It equally carries the promise of re-enlarging productive agricultural (and related) employment and increasing the total income generated by the agricultural sector, at both regional and national levels. While we recognise that agroecology is a worldwide and multidimensional phenomenon we have chosen to limit this analysis to Europe and the economic dimension. This choice is made in order to refute current discourses that represent agroecology as unproductive and unprofitable and an option that would require massive subsidies.

In mountain regions, ecosystem services provision is strongly linked to land use, topography and climate, where impacts can be expected under global change. For our study site in the Austrian Alps, we examined the relationship between agricultural activities and multiple ecosystem services on landscape scale from past to future. Modelling of future land-use patterns was based on stakeholder workshops considering different socio-economic and climate scenarios. In the past, land-use intensity was reduced resulting in less forage provision but better regulating services. Future scenarios predict contrasting developments; under conditions of global change, farmers shift the focus of their activities towards tourism, but in times of global economic crisis farming becomes more important again. Developing the local economy facilitates new markets for agricultural products, but projected drought periods will cause an abandonment of farmland. While forest regeneration is valuable for regulating services, it reduces the aesthetic value. Both regulating and cultural services decrease when forage provision is optimized. To ensure multiple ecosystem service provision, agricultural management should be related to ecosystem services and included into land-use policies and agricultural incentives.

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