Harnessing the biodiversity value of Central and Eastern European farmland

Abstract

A large proportion of European biodiversity today depends on habitat provided by low‐intensity farming practices, yet this resource is declining as European agriculture intensifies. Within the European Union, particularly the central and eastern new member states have retained relatively large areas of species‐rich farmland, but despite increased investment in nature conservation here in recent years, farmland biodiversity trends appear to be worsening. Although the high biodiversity value of Central and Eastern European farmland has long been reported, the amount of research in the international literature focused on farmland biodiversity in this region remains comparatively tiny, and measures within the EU Common Agricultural Policy are relatively poorly adapted to support it. In this opinion study, we argue that, 10 years after the accession of the first eastern EU new member states, the continued under‐representation of the low‐intensity farmland in Central and Eastern Europe in the international literature and EU policy is impeding the development of sound, evidence‐based conservation interventions. The biodiversity benefits for Europe of existing low‐intensity farmland, particularly in the central and eastern states, should be harnessed before they are lost. Instead of waiting for species‐rich farmland to further decline, targeted research and monitoring to create locally appropriate conservation strategies for these habitats is needed now.

Bridging the research-practice gap: Conservation research priorities in a Central and Eastern European country

“…habitats and species distribution, conservation status) are increasingly important for effective and pro-active conservation activities (e.g. Sutcliffe et al 2014). However, in Hungary, similarly to the Romanian case (see Ioja et al 2010) spatially explicit and long-term monitoring data are very limited or not widely available and population biology of several important and threatened species are poorly known.…”

Climate Change Influence on Agriculture and the Water-Energy-Food Nexus in Central and Eastern European Countries

“…In the CEE region Poland, Romania and Hungary are the principal agricultural producers (Csaki and Jambor, 2009). In most cases, the return of land to private ownership in CEE countries has led to the creation of small semi-subsistence holdings (generally < 5 ha in size) and only a few very large industrial farms (Davidova et al, 2012;Sutcliffe 2015). environmental data analyses.…”

“…Progressively, until 2007 when Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU, all Balkan states became fully-fledged democracies (Swinnen and Van Herck, 2013). Socio-political history, coupled with lack of access to technology, represented limitations for industrial Overall agricultural productivity dropped dramatically in the CEE and large areas of both cropland and grassland were abandoned in the 1990s and early 2000s (Sutcliffe et al, 2015). Indeed, in most countries transitioning their economies after 1989, agricultural output dropped 25-50% (Macours and Swinnen, 2000;Liefert and Swinnen, 2002), with price liberalization and subsidy cuts being the major contributors to the decline, followed by a 10% output fall caused by severe drought (Macours and Swinnen, 2000).…”

“…While development of low farm intensity is a priority for a sustainable future (Pointereau et al, 2012), the overall trend in the region is intensification (Eurostat 2016, agri-environmental indicator-intensification-extensification, Nov. 2012), the high percentages of low input intensity being attributable to the economic size of farms in these countries. Despite its average payment of 237 € ha −1 of farmland in the last programming period, the CAP efforts to support EU farming through subsidies barely achieved subsistence and semi-subsistence holdings that make up such a large proportion of CEE farms (Sutcliffe et al, 2015). Thus, farm abandonment or intensification might become the only and best option available.…”

“…Unfortunately, agricultural systems continue to degrade land, water, biodiversity and climate on a global scale, impacting world food security and sustainability needs (Foley et al, 2011). On the positive side, while worldwide sustainable agricultural intensification has dramatically increased in recent decades (Foley et al, 2011;Rockström et al, 2017), the CEE region's legacy of communist agricultural policy has led to lower average levels of land use intensity, affecting not only the structure and use of farmland, but also better preserving farmland biodiversity, which has been lost in the West (Sutcliffe et al, 2015). Even today, in some of the CEE countries, farming and pasture are managed as they were in the past (Pǎtru-Stupariu et al, 2015).…”