Analysing Perceptions Attitudes and Responses of Winegrowers about Sustainable Land Management in Central Spain

Abstract

This study provides a better understanding of the perspective and attitudes of farmers towards sustainable land management (SLM) practices in central Spain. Farmer's willingness to change from conventional tillage to cover crops in vineyards is seen as an indicator for adoption of sustainable agriculture. Two complementary approaches were used: open interviews (n = 25) and surveys (n = 64). The portrait of these winegrowers is of mature farmers, owners of their lands and conscious of soil erosion problems (81%), although not on their own lands. They observe soil degradation (45%); however, they are more conscious of problems in their vines or grapes (64%). Only 32% would be willing to use cover crops to avoid erosion. The barriers for adoption were mainly related to water constraints, lack of knowledge and inability to accept production decreases. Results indicate an underlying lack of information on SLM. They show confusion or mistakes regarding the relationship between tillage and erosion. Young farmers are more prone to change practices. Scientific results are not effectively communicated; there are no efficient local structures to provide them with knowledge and advice in their work, including guidance on environmental issues. The EU agri‐environment payments cover the costs of SLM practices for avoiding erosion or compaction and increasing SOC. In spite of that, participants do not apply for subsidies to compensate the income foregone. Policy makers, extension services and scientists have to face this situation to tackle the limited knowledge transfer revealed in this study. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The immediate effectiveness of barley straw mulch in reducing soil erodibility and surface runoff generation in Mediterranean vineyards

“…Vineyards represent one of the most important crops in terms of income and employment, especially for three of the world's top ten grape-producing countries found in the Mediterranean region, namely Spain, Italy and France, where the total grape area in 2009 amounted to 11,000, 8020 and 8100 km 2 and thus 2.2, 2.6 and 1.5% of the respective national land areas (Anderson and Norman, 2011). For these reasons, adequate soil management practices are needed to contribute to a more sustainable viticulture, which includes evaluation to determine whether they are acceptable to the farmers who will have to utilize them (Galati et al, 2015;Marques et al, 2015). The most common soil management techniques in Mediterranean countries consist of tillage (mechanical weeding) and no-tillage (chemical weeding) operations (García-Orenes et al, 2009), and both of them generally result in bare soils during the entire year Lasanta and Sobrón, 1988;Vaudour et al, 2015).…”

Groundcover influence on physical and chemical soil properties, runoff and nutrient loss and grape yield and quality in semiarid Mediterranean vineyards

“…Water scarcity is one of the most important limiting factors in agricultural semiarid regions. In central Spain, farmers relate the use of GC to water consumption and this, together with cultural reasons, generates a refuse to GC systematically (Marqués et al, 2015). Therefore, there is a need of research about the effects of GC on grape yield and must quality in representative vineyards of central Spain.…”

“…In the Madrid region, it is even lower: 3.1 % (MAGRAMA, 2015c). This is mostly due to cultural reasons and the reduction in grape yields (Marqués et al, 2015). Ruiz-Colmenero et al (2011) found that in two out of three trials, GC in rainfed vineyards reduced grape yields significantly.…”

“…We hypothesized lower runoff rates and nitrogen losses with the adoption of GC, which can strengthen these practices from the farmers' point of view. There is a gap between scientific and farmer knowledge, and the exchange of information with policy makers is poor (Marqués et al, 2015). Then, agroenvironmental payments and agricultural managements were mainly encouraged in the context of the Common Agricultural Policy, without any adaptation to local conditions.…”

“…Although vineyards in central Spain suffer all previously described degradation processes, the majority of farmers decline using GC in vineyards because of social stigmatization, culture (Marqués et al, 2015) and grape harvest reduction (Ruiz-Colmenero et al, 2011). the most of the rainfall is recorded in autumn and winter, the farmers are paid for using winter cover crops.…”