Integrating Agricultural and Ecological Goals into the Management of Species-Rich Grasslands: Learning from the Flowering Meadows Competition in France

Abstract

Current agri-environmental schemes for reconciling agricultural production with biodiversity conservation are proving ineffective Europe-wide, increasing interest in results-based schemes (RBSs). We describe here the French "Flowering Meadows" competition, rewarding the "best agroecological balance" in semi-natural grasslands managed by livestock farmers. This competition, which was entered by about a thousand farmers in 50 regional nature parks between 2007 and 2014, explicitly promotes a new style of agri-environmental scheme focusing on an ability to reach the desired outcome rather than adherence to prescriptive management rules. Building on our experience in the design and monitoring of the competition, we argue that the cornerstone of successful RBSs is a collective learning process in which the reconciliation of agriculture and environment is reconsidered in terms of synergistic relationships between agricultural and ecological functioning. We present the interactive, iterative process by which we defined an original method for assessing species-rich grasslands in agroecological terms. This approach was based on the integration of new criteria, such as flexibility, feeding value, and consistency of use, into the assessment of forage production performance and the consideration of biodiversity conservation through its functional role within the grassland ecosystem, rather than simply noting the presence or abundance of species. We describe the adaptation of this methodology on the basis of competition feedback, to bring about a significant shift in the conventional working methods of agronomists and conservationists (including researchers).The potential and efficacy of RBSs for promoting ecologically sound livestock systems are discussed in the concluding remarks, and they relate to the ecological intensification debate.

Ecological intensification to mitigate impacts of conventional intensive land use on pollinators and pollination

“…; Magda et al . ). However, these schemes can potentially punish farmers who act adequately but do not achieve the goals because of external variables, such as land configuration (e.g.…”

“…Recently, it was suggested that switching to 'payment by results schemes' (i.e. paying farmers for outcomes rather than for performing set management activities) could be an effective instrument for changing farming social behaviour, and could encourage the establishment of common goals between farmers and conservationists (de Snoo et al 2012;Magda et al 2015). However, these schemes can potentially punish farmers who act adequately but do not achieve the goals because of external variables, such as land configuration (e.g.…”

Reconciling Environment and Production in Managed Ecosystems: Is Ecological Intensification a Solution?

“…Two studies also demonstrate that compromises between intensive production and biodiversity conservation (including forest landscape connectivity) or environmental parameter preservation are possible at the landscape scale (Marusak et al 2015;Tittler et al 2015), which strengthens the idea of implementing EI at different spatial scales (Tittonell 2014). Finally, it appears that the possibility of reconciling production and the environment requires avoiding opposing these two elements in concepts and speech; building interactive and reflexive interactions between researchers, owners, and managers; and building landscape agroecosystem designs based on innovation, cooperation, and intensive knowledge sharing (Lemaire et al 2015;Levain et al 2015;Magda et al 2015; see also Tittonell (2014) and Caron et al (2014)). …”

“…It contains innovative scientific research focusing on the following topics related to EI: (1) the relationships between specific practices and key functional ecological components or biodiversity (Kershaw et al 2015); (2) the efficiency of practices according to EI principles (Lemaire et al 2015;Levain et al 2015;Mattioli et al 2015;Petit et al 2015;Podadera et al 2015); and (3) the analysis of trade-offs and synergies between production and biodiversity conservation (Lafond et al 2015;Loucougaray et al 2015;Magda et al 2015;Marusak et al 2015;Mathias et al 2015;Tittler et al 2015).…”

Green belts in the hands and minds of farmers: A socio-agronomic approach to farmers’ practices

“…In the context of implementing green belt provisions, farmers are faced with the challenge of ensuring a profitable production while at the same time following the rules set up to protect biodiversity. Moreover, while the landscape transformations leading to fragmented habitats are caused by multiple factors such as urban sprawl, expanding transport infrastructures, increasing traffic, land consolidation and draining of wetlands, modern intensive farming is often pointed to as a major driver of the collapse of wildlife populations and a threat to biodiversity conservation (Jongman, 2002;Henle et al, 2008), when in fact there are possible synergies between agriculture and biodiversity (Altieri, 1999;Grashof-Bokdam and Van Langervelde, 2004;Le Roux et al, 2008;Fleury et al, 2015;Magda et al, 2015).…”