Link to publication on Research at Birmingham portal General rightsUnless a licence is specified above, all rights (including copyright and moral rights) in this document are retained by the authors and/or the copyright holders. The express permission of the copyright holder must be obtained for any use of this material other than for purposes permitted by law.• Users may freely distribute the URL that is used to identify this publication.• Users may download and/or print one copy of the publication from the University of Birmingham research portal for the purpose of private study or non-commercial research.• User may use extracts from the document in line with the concept of 'fair dealing' under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (?) • Users may not further distribute the material nor use it for the purposes of commercial gain.Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document.When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policyWhile the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.

This is the peer reviewed version of the article which has been published in final form in the Journal fo Rural Studies at http://dx.doi.org/10. 1016/j.jrurstud.2014.06.001 ©2016. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ HighlightsExplores the relationship between farmer autonomy and environmental outcomes.Compares agricultural cooperatives and cooperation in UK, New Zealand, Switzerland and Brazil.For autonomy to remain a tool to negotiate alternatives then we must continue to prevent the monopolization of its meaning.Actual autonomy can create dialogue to bridge concerns about farmers, livelihood, and environmental outcomes. AbstractThe struggle over autonomy in farming is emblematic of the philosophical and practical tensions inherent in solving multi-scalar environmental issues. We explore the multiplicities of autonomy through comparative case studies of agricultural cooperation in England, Switzerland, New Zealand, and Brazil, which allow consideration of the implications of a range of approaches to managing farmed environments under different variations of neoliberalism. The original data emerge from separate projects examining aspects of cooperative autonomy in relation to the effects of the neoliberalisation of nature in agriculture. The comparative examination of autonomy and cooperation across distinct agri-food contexts highlights diversity in the social, ecological and economic outcomes of alternative forms of agri-environmental governance. This analysis provides a sobering corrective to both the over-romanticization of cooperation across global peasant movements and the over-romanticization of the individual entrepreneur in agro-industrial and family farming sectors. Our examination highlights the need for greater attention to the relationships between actors at and across different scales (the farm level, organizations and communities, the state, and industry) to understand how, in contrasting contexts of neoliberalisation, alternative conceptions of autonomy serve to mediate particular interventions and their material environmental consequences. A focus on actual autonomy, via the peasant principle and territorial cooperatives, creates an opening in theoretical and political dialogue to bridge concerns about farmers, livelihoods, and environmental outcomes.

Summary The primary aim of many agri‐environment schemes (AES) is to enhance biodiversity; however, the results of AES designed for this purpose have, to date, been largely underwhelming. One reason for this may be because AES tend to be administered at the farm scale. We argue that collaborative AES (cAES) – single environmental management agreements for multiple farm units – can benefit biodiversity. We then discuss how a shift to this type of scheme may impact upon ecosystem services (ES). Evidence gathered from studies carried out across European farmland demonstrated that more than a third (18 of 52; 35%) of the bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian and bumblebee species important in English farmland operate at scales larger than the typical English farm (146 ha) in the breeding season. While this study relates ranging behaviour specifically to England and the English AES system, the estimates of ranging behaviour presented in this study could also be used (with caution) to compare with farm sizes elsewhere in Europe, making the results of wider geographical relevance. Data were obtained from face‐to‐face interviews with 32 farmers with differing AES backgrounds [current participants at either low or high level (entry‐level Stewardship or higher‐level Stewardship/countryside Stewardship scheme), or current non‐participants]. Eighty‐one per cent of interviewees were found to be willing, in principle, to participate in a collaborative AES (cAES) programme. However, they viewed less extensive options (e.g. management of existing hedgerows) more favourably than extensive or cooperatively demanding land management options (e.g. large‐scale habitat creation). Data from an online consultation of a further 122 farmers supported the principal finding, with 75% of respondents willing, in theory, to participate in collaborative schemes. Synthesis and applications. Well‐designed landscape‐scale schemes are likely to be more beneficial than farm‐scale schemes for a small but significant number of key farmland species and ES, such as bats, mammals and some important pollinators, while unlikely to harm species operating at smaller scales. These schemes can be expected to attract widespread participation from landowners. Thus, policymakers may be heartened that collaborative AES are a potential multifaceted solution to environmental management on farmland.

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There is a lack of published evidence which demonstrates the impacts of public engagement (PE) in science and technology policy. This might represent the failure of PE to achieve policy impacts or indicate a lack of effective procedures for discerning the uptake by policy makers of PEderived outputs. While efforts have been made to identify and categorize different types of policy impact, research has rarely attempted to link policy impact with PE procedures, political procedures, or the connections between them. In this article, we propose a simple conceptual model to capture this information, based on semistructured interviews with both policy makers and PE practitioners. A range of criteria are identified to increase the policy impact of PE. The role of PE practitioners in realizing impacts through their interactions with policy makers in the informal ''in-between'' spaces of public engagement is emphasized. However, the potential contradictions between the pursuit of policy impacts and the more traditional conceptualizations of PE effectiveness are discussed. The main barrier to the identification of policy impacts from PE may lie within policy processes themselves. Political institutions have responsibility to establish formalized procedures for monitoring the uptake and use of evidence from PE in their decision-making processes.