Between aspirations and reality Making farming, food systems and rural areas more resilient, sustainable and equitable
Agricultural intensification and associated loss of high‐quality habitats are key drivers of insect pollinator declines. With the aim of decreasing the environmental impact of agriculture, the 2014 EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) defined a set of habitat and landscape features (Ecological Focus Areas: EFAs) farmers could select from as a requirement to receive basic farm payments. To inform the post‐2020 CAP, we performed a European‐scale evaluation to determine how different EFA options vary in their potential to support insect pollinators under standard and pollinator‐friendly management, as well as the extent of farmer uptake. A structured Delphi elicitation process engaged 22 experts from 18 European countries to evaluate EFAs options. By considering life cycle requirements of key pollinating taxa (i.e. bumble bees, solitary bees and hoverflies), each option was evaluated for its potential to provide forage, bee nesting sites and hoverfly larval resources. EFA options varied substantially in the resources they were perceived to provide and their effectiveness varied geographically and temporally. For example, field margins provide relatively good forage throughout the season in Southern and Eastern Europe but lacked early‐season forage in Northern and Western Europe. Under standard management, no single EFA option achieved high scores across resource categories and a scarcity of late season forage was perceived. Experts identified substantial opportunities to improve habitat quality by adopting pollinator‐friendly management. Improving management alone was, however, unlikely to ensure that all pollinator resource requirements were met. Our analyses suggest that a combination of poor management, differences in the inherent pollinator habitat quality and uptake bias towards catch crops and nitrogen‐fixing crops severely limit the potential of EFAs to support pollinators in European agricultural landscapes. Policy Implications. To conserve pollinators and help protect pollination services, our expert elicitation highlights the need to create a variety of interconnected, well‐managed habitats that complement each other in the resources they offer. To achieve this the Common Agricultural Policy post‐2020 should take a holistic view to implementation that integrates the different delivery vehicles aimed at protecting biodiversity (e.g. enhanced conditionality, eco‐schemes and agri‐environment and climate measures). To improve habitat quality we recommend an effective monitoring framework with target‐orientated indicators and to facilitate the spatial targeting of options collaboration between land managers should be incentivised.
In most transition economies, agricultural reforms have led to the emergence of family farms and household food production and to the decline of corporate farms. This study explores that trend for the case of Lithuania based on secondary information and primary survey data. The structure of corporate farms and links to the economic environment are explored. Specific hypotheses on the reasons for the profitability crisis in corporate farms are developed and tested. The paper concludes with a critical discussion of current changes in farm structures in the transition economies. Comparative Economic Studies (2006) 48, 156–182. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ces.8100146
The CAP support is mostly focused on the technological modernization of farms, linked with production intensification, and weakly focused on the farms prosperity and resilience. As a result farmers and managers of agricultural companies are only a slightly motivated to produce added value and high quality food products, to use short food supply chains addressing constantly changing consumer needs, or to pay much attention on issues related to climate change. The paper findings are based on the Lithuanian case study carried out as a part of the international research project “Rethinking the links between farm modernization, rural development and resilience in a world of increasing demands and finite resources” (RETHINK). The Lithuanian case study was determining farmers’ behaviour and causal factors in decision-making. The research based on the positive research paradigm, case study, content and descriptive analysis, empirical study methods (answers of two groups of experts experts-professionals and experts-farmers), logical and systematical reasoning, graphic presentation, abstracts and other methods. The present paper is examining the impact of political factors on prosperity and resilience on farms and agricultural companies. The political factors have the highest impact for prosperity of the farms and agricultural companies in Lithuania (as compared to the technical – entrepreneurial, ethical - social factors, and intangible values). The support from the EU and the national funds is not fully in line with the current concept of farms’ modernization and agricultural innovation. The public policy influence on the competitiveness of the agricultural sector is more strengthening than weakening. The results show the main elements that farmers believe should be included in the new concept of rural prosperity, as well as the main strategies adopted to reach prosperity divided into the five sub dimensions: development of the rural social infrastructure and implementation of information technologies; strong self-governance, social awareness and partnership; high culture of life and communication; rural employment and job creation in rural areas, population welfare; economic and social viability, ecology and environmental security of the countryside.
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