Probing the grounds: Developing a payment-by-results agri-environment scheme in Finland

Birge, Traci; Toivonen, Marjaana; Kaljonen, Minna; Herzon, Irina

doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.11.028

Cited by 39 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 34 publications

(58 reference statements)

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“…PES schemes (Panel 2) – particularly results‐based instruments that build on farm management decisions known to foster biodiversity or ecosystem services – are seen as effective ways of increasing efficient use of public funds for sustainability goals (Birge et al . ). An approach based on rewarding farmers for the wide range of values delivered to society could be a pathway to ensuring the viability of HNV farmlands while at the same time stimulating innovation in managing farmlands for ecosystem service delivery and increasing the efficient use of public funding.…”

Section: Moving Toward Socioecological Viability Of Hnv Farmlandsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Back to the future: rethinking socioecological systems underlying high nature value farmlands

Lomba

Moreira

Klimek

et al. 2019

Frontiers in Ecol & Environ

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Farmlands are currently among the dominant uses of the land. When managed under low‐input farming systems, farmlands are associated with diverse cultural and natural heritages around the world. Known in Europe as high nature value (HNV) farmlands, these agricultural landscapes and their associated farming systems evolved as tightly coupled socioecological systems, and are essential to biodiversity conservation and the delivery of ecosystem services to society. However, HNV farmlands are vulnerable to socioeconomic changes that lead to either agricultural intensification or land abandonment. We present a range of plausible future scenarios for HNV farmlands, and discuss the related management options and expected socioecological outcomes for each scenario. We then provide recommendations for policy, practice, and research on how to best ensure the socioecological viability of HNV farming systems in the future.

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Section: Moving Toward Socioecological Viability Of Hnv Farmlandsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Back to the future: rethinking socioecological systems underlying high nature value farmlands

Lomba

Moreira

Klimek

et al. 2019

Frontiers in Ecol & Environ

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“…In this approach, farmers are positively oriented towards it, which is also what the public should be aware of. On the other hand, administrative personnel appear to be critical of this solution [50].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Approach to Farm Biodiversity Assessment

2019

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A reduction in biodiversity due to farming operations has been broadly reported. As a solution, policy makers in the European Union have introduced several programs in recent years to enhance biodiversity on farms but these have met with only limited success. One of the main reasons for this lack of success is that the experience, knowledge and attitudes of farmers are not taken into account when biodiversity conservation programs are formulated. Farmers’ opinions must be taken into consideration in the creation of future programs, which should also include an assessment by the farmers of the value of the nature of their farms. In this study, farmers were asked to express their opinion on the attractiveness of their farm in relation to pollinators, game, birds, amphibians, reptiles, rodents and non-crop (wild) plants. Data were then analysed using a novel method in which each farm was assigned to one of four categories. High nature-value farms contained more natural features in the landscape, such as individual trees or ponds. Socio-economic factors, such as gender, also influenced the farm assessments; female farmers were more critical compared to their male counterparts. The establishment of field margins or watercourse by the farmers significantly increased the possibility that the farm would be classified as attractive.

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“…The aim of our re search is to ex am ine the po ten tial cul tural ac ceptabil ity of the re sults-based ap proach in Fin land. We de vel oped a hy pothet i cal re sults-based scheme us ing na ture man age ment grass land (NMG) as an ex am ple (Birge et al, 2017). NMG is one of sev eral AES op tions for non-com mod ity arable elds in Fin land.…”

Section: Hypothetical Scheme For Nature Management Grasslandmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Farm ers in ter ested in en rolling elds that are be low the in di ca tor species thresh old can learn about man age ment through ad visory ma te ri als, ex per i ment ing with prac tices to try to in crease the number of species, and sow ing the species. The bonus el e ment would be sub ject to nor mal AES spot in spec tions (Birge et al, 2017) based on the same pro ce dure. If a farmer im ple mented the prac tices likely to pro mote the in di ca tor species but did not achieve the an tic i pated re sults, only the bonus pay ment would be with held.…”

Section: Hypothetical Scheme For Nature Management Grasslandmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We en gaged farm ers in whether they would be inter ested in the scheme and whether they have the ca pac ity to carry out the self-mon i tor ing com po nent and knowl edge of best prac tices for produc ing the tar get bio di ver sity re sult (see in ter view guide in Birge et al, 2017 Appendix C). Dis cus sions con tin ued in the eld in 10 cases, where we walked to gether with the farm ers and searched for the in dica tor plant species, us ing an ex am ple of ex ten sion ma te ri als (Appendices A1 and A2 in Birge et al, 2017). We also dis cussed dif fer Table 1 The farm ers' pro les, pro duc tion and in for ma tion of na ture man age ment grass land schemes on their hold ings (the area is based on of cial g ures from 2014).…”

Section: Farmer Interviewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring cultural acceptability of a hypothetical results-based agri-environment payment for grassland biodiversity

Birge

Herzon

2019

Journal of Rural Studies

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Agri-en vi ron ment-cli mate schemes (AES) form the most im por tant pol icy in stru ment for con ser va tion of bio di ver sity in the Eu ro pean Union, in clud ing Fin land (European Environment Agency, 2004). The AES bud gets reg u larly equal or ex ceed the amount of money spent on wildlife and na ture con ser va tion ef forts through other routes (Batáry et al., 2015). De spite this large ex pen di ture, farm land bio di ver sity con tinues to de cline in all EU mem ber states, and AES are too lim ited in extent to re verse the larger-scale im pacts of other CAP in stru ments (Pe'er et al., 2017). Other short com ings of the cur rent sys tem range from insuf ciently clear pol icy aims and as so ci ated prob lems with mon i tor ing to lack of ex i bil ity of im ple men ta tion un der var ied site con di tions to poor cul tural sus tain abil ity (Burton and Paragahawewa, 2011; European Court of Auditors, 2011; Poláková et al., 2011). The cur rent sys tem is based on pre scribed ac tions to be car ried out and is heav ily top down. Farm ers are mainly ob lig ated to carry out actions, some times ac cord ing to spe ci c dates, for pay ment. Pre scribed man age ment ac tions may not favour, or even iden tify, op ti mal manage ment for meet ing con ser va tion tar gets on a par tic u lar site or empower man agers to ad dress is sues or con di tions for op ti mal man agement (Pullin and Knight, 2003). Ad di tion ally, the ac tions-based approach is crit i cized as lack ing cul tural sus tain abil ity: it has failed to instil long-term at ti tu di nal change amongst farm ers (Burton and Paragahawewa, 2011) and is claimed to ' dis in cen tivise' farm ers by intro duc ing a highly reg u la tory en vi ron ment that dis cour ages in no v a tive and site-spe ci c ap proaches and in stead links farmer be hav iour more to mon e tary stim uli than ap pre ci a tion of re sults of their work (

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Probing the grounds: Developing a payment-by-results agri-environment scheme in Finland

Cited by 39 publications

References 34 publications

Back to the future: rethinking socioecological systems underlying high nature value farmlands

Back to the future: rethinking socioecological systems underlying high nature value farmlands

A New Approach to Farm Biodiversity Assessment

Exploring cultural acceptability of a hypothetical results-based agri-environment payment for grassland biodiversity

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