How farmers think about insects: perceptions of biodiversity, biodiversity loss and attitudes towards insect-friendly farming practices

Busse, Maria; Zoll, Felix; Siebert, Rosemarie; Bartels, Annette; Bokelmann, Anke; Scharschmidt, Phillipp

doi:10.1007/s10531-021-02235-2

Cited by 25 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 58 publications

(118 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This review also emphasized farmers' lack of knowledge and understanding about the IPM principles and application, which also limits the impact of this directive and the extent to which it can help to reduce insecticide dependency. For the policy to be successful and widely adopted, farmers' needs and problem awareness should be better considered; this could be achieved by involving farmers in the co-design of these policies (Busse et al, 2021;Hurley et al, 2020).…”

Section: The Way Forwardmentioning

confidence: 99%

How contradictory EU policies led to the development of a pest: The story of oilseed rape and the cabbage stem flea beetle

2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Society currently faces a whole raft of global challenges to future, sustainable development (United Nations, 2021). Three key challenges include mitigating and reversing climate change, halting declines in biodiversity, and producing healthy and nutritious food for the growing world population. These challenges are interlinked and the ways in which society must respond are complex and wide ranging (EEA, 2020;Liu et al., 2015). As the drivers of these global problems are better understood, the EU has designed a range of policies to try to address them:1. In response to the problems of climate change and global warming, there is a need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (Hansen et al., 2013;Peters et al., 2013).

show abstract

Section: The Way Forwardmentioning

confidence: 99%

How contradictory EU policies led to the development of a pest: The story of oilseed rape and the cabbage stem flea beetle

2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…for food to be produced to a higher environmental standard (Cusworth 2020), and the public opinion (van Herzele et al 2013) further influence the willingness of farmers to implement biodiversityfriendly farming measures. Through this implementation they can show a more positive image of farmers to locals and the public (Busse et al 2021). However, these biodiversity-friendly actions can be in contrast to or align with traditions and habits of former generations leading to conflicts or support of the practices (Fleury et al 2015;Mills et al 2017).…”

Section: Society Community and Landscapementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The level of financial compensation and expected profits strongly influences the business decision. The higher the payment, the higher the willingness to participate (Busse et al 2021;Christensen et al 2011;de Krom 2017;Defrancesco et al 2008;Falconer 2000;Mante and Gerowitt 2009;Stobbelaar et al 2009;van Herzele et al 2013). However, besides the pure compensation of income forgone the payments can provide or contribute to profit maximisation, long-term farm viability, and risk minimisation (Ahnström et al 2008;Brown et al 2019;Siebert et al 2006) and therefore appear attractive.…”

Section: Society Community and Landscapementioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the one hand there is market pressure to produce at usual market terms, and keep up with international market competition (Ahnström et al 2008;Schoonhoven and Runhaar 2018). On the other hand, difficult access to markets and lack of adequate value chains for alternative products (e.g., alfalfa, sunflower, faba beans, hemp) hamper biodiversity-friendly production (Busse et al 2021). And also higher opportunity costs of alternative, economically more attractive uses for the land exist, which reduces the acceptance of schemes (Keenleyside et al 2011).…”

Section: Society Community and Landscapementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Deliverable D2.1 Overview of regulatory and incentive instruments for biodiversity management on farms

Schaller¹,

Scherfranz²,

Häfner³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This document represents Deliverable 2.1 “Overview of regulatory and incentive instruments for biodiversity management on farms” within WP2 „Identifying incentives to promote biodiversity and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes“ of the EU Horizon 2020 project SHOWCASE. It reports the outcomes of WP2 Task 2.1 “Evaluating regulatory and incentive instruments for biodiversity management on farms”. In the 1st and 2nd chapter, the report gives a short introduction of the deliverable’s objectives, the tasks addressed, the report’s outline and the main focus of the literature review. Chapter 3 gives an overview of the main laws governing biodiversity protection in the European Union. The main elements of the Birds and Habitats directives are presented, alongside other biodiversity laws and policies, with a focus on the obligations and requirements they set on agriculture in order to protect European native wildlife. Chapter 3 also covers the features of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy that operate as a regulatory baseline for all beneficiaries of farm subsidies, i.e., cross-compliance and greening requirements under the current CAP and the new conditionality in the CAP 2023-2027. Chapter 4 gives an overview of economic and non-economic approaches potentially promoting farmers’ pro-biodiversity behaviour. Whereas economically oriented approaches imply positive or negative monetary flows – compensation payments or rewards vs. penalties – to motivate farmers to implement biodiversity-friendly management practices or to prevent them from harming biodiversity, partnerships and networks steer farmers’ behaviour through agreeing on a common goal and working towards it by sharing resources, skills and risk. With regards to the agricultural focus of SHOWCASE, Chapter 4 looks in more detail at the incentives provided by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union. This covers both the current and future CAP, with an overview of how the novel eco-schemes can provide new incentives for farmers to adopt biodiversity friendly practices. Chapter 5 looks into how the combination of regulatory frameworks and incentives operate in practice for farmers in the EU. To this end, grey literature and European Commission publications related to farming for biodiversity have been reviewed. A specific focus is set on biodiversity-friendly farming in Natura 2000 sites, as central exemplary areas of continuous and long-lasting efforts in biodiversity conservation. This is followed by revising some of the main conclusions from very recent grey literature assessing the successes and failures of the CAP in relation to biodiversity. Chapter 6 provides an overview of approaches that have already been implemented to incentivize farmers’ pro-biodiversity behaviour. Based on grey literature, various types of approaches – i. e. focusing on plot or farm level, land tenure or the entire value chain, building on organic farming or including market-based, value-based or measure-based mechanisms – were identified within the EBA countries, further EU member states and selected western countries outside the EU. In sum, 62 examples of pro-biodiversity schemes were included in the further analysis representing highly divergent incentivizing mechanisms and the most important agricultural systems of the EBAs as well as in consequence serving as an information platform for further EBA scheme design activities. Based on the preceding chapters and their focus on result-based approaches, Chapter 7 casts a critical eye on their suitability with regards to various regulatory, policy, social and administrative contexts also considering potential national differences. On the international level, WTO requirements such as Green Box rules are a limiting factor with regards to result- based payment modalities and thus scheme design. On the national and regional level, issues to be considered include long-term availability of funding, guaranteeing additionality if requested, stakeholders’ and decision-makers’ attitudes towards agri-environment-climate measures in general as well as towards result-oriented approaches specifically, availability of suitable indicators and IT-systems, access to extension services and profound know-how of farmers and public authorities regarding the interlinkages between biodiversity and farming practices. On individual level, farmers’ trust in involved institutions and their willingness to participate are additionally discussed as highly relevant factors affecting the suitability of result- based approaches. In Chapter 8 a structured overview on factors influencing farmers’ willingness to promote biodiversity by implementing voluntary biodiversity measures is presented. Based on the review of scientific literature, the chapter describes several determinants which have been identified along three scales, i.e. 1) society, community and landscape, 2) farm scale, and 3) farmers’ intrinsic factors. The main influencing factors at the first scale range from the design of policies, to economic aspects, to socio-cultural norms. The second scale encompasses relevant farm characteristics, such as farm type and size to field conditions. For the farmers’ intrinsic factors age, education, experience, and self-identity play an important role. However, it is important to make a distinction between farmers’ willingness to participate in schemes and their actual behaviour, because the latter is determined by their ability to do so. Chapter 9 closes the Deliverable by giving an outlook on the further use of the results for scientific analyses within SHOWCASE, supporting mainly the work of designing interventions in WP1 and of developing surveys and model designs in WP2, as well as providing a basis for communication and policy recommendation material for WP4.

show abstract

“…The role of farmers in shaping these measures and policies could be of paramount importance, as they hold local knowledge and are the ones who ultimately implement conservation measures (Lacombe et al., 2018). Currently, farmers are caught between competitive pressures that force them to produce at low cost and societal expectations as well as environmental demands, requiring them to conserve land for biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services (Burton, 2004; Busse et al., 2021; Deuffic & Candau, 2006). At the same time, farmers know very well the environmental characteristics of the land they farm and its production potential.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Co‐design: Working with farmers in Europe to halt the loss of biological diversity

Hölting

Busse

Bülow³

et al. 2022

Ecol Sol and Evidence

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Biodiversity loss in European agricultural landscapes is progressing rapidly despite a growing number of conservation efforts. One of the reasons for this is that farmers do not have enough decision‐making power and do not receive adequate advice to tailor conservation measures to local conditions and regional biodiversity targets. In this paper, we therefore address the potential and practical implementation of co‐designing conservation measures through close collaboration between farmers and other stakeholders (e.g. other practitioners, conservation experts, agricultural advisors, scientists and policymakers). Based on interviews with four researchers from ongoing European co‐design projects, one national and one European farmers’ organizations, we discuss the challenges and provide recommendations for co‐design in the context of biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes. Our aim is to reach scientists, practitioners and local decision makers working on innovative and locally adapted conservation efforts.

show abstract

How farmers think about insects: perceptions of biodiversity, biodiversity loss and attitudes towards insect-friendly farming practices

Cited by 25 publications

References 58 publications

How contradictory EU policies led to the development of a pest: The story of oilseed rape and the cabbage stem flea beetle

How contradictory EU policies led to the development of a pest: The story of oilseed rape and the cabbage stem flea beetle

Deliverable D2.1 Overview of regulatory and incentive instruments for biodiversity management on farms

Co‐design: Working with farmers in Europe to halt the loss of biological diversity

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About