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Scheper J, Badenhausser I, Kantelhardt J, Kirchweger S, Bartomeus I, Bretagnolle V, Clough Y, Gross N, Raemakers I, Vilà M, Zaragoza-Trello C, Kleijn D. Biodiversity and pollination benefits trade off against profit in an intensive farming system. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2023; 120:e2212124120. [PMID: 37399410 PMCID: PMC10334771 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2212124120] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/15/2022] [Accepted: 05/17/2023] [Indexed: 07/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Agricultural expansion and intensification have boosted global food production but have come at the cost of environmental degradation and biodiversity loss. Biodiversity-friendly farming that boosts ecosystem services, such as pollination and natural pest control, is widely being advocated to maintain and improve agricultural productivity while safeguarding biodiversity. A vast body of evidence showing the agronomic benefits of enhanced ecosystem service delivery represent important incentives to adopt practices enhancing biodiversity. However, the costs of biodiversity-friendly management are rarely taken into account and may represent a major barrier impeding uptake by farmers. Whether and how biodiversity conservation, ecosystem service delivery, and farm profit can go hand in hand is unknown. Here, we quantify the ecological, agronomic, and net economic benefits of biodiversity-friendly farming in an intensive grassland-sunflower system in Southwest France. We found that reducing land-use intensity on agricultural grasslands drastically enhances flower availability and wild bee diversity, including rare species. Biodiversity-friendly management on grasslands furthermore resulted in an up to 17% higher revenue on neighboring sunflower fields through positive effects on pollination service delivery. However, the opportunity costs of reduced grassland forage yields consistently exceeded the economic benefits of enhanced sunflower pollination. Our results highlight that profitability is often a key constraint hampering adoption of biodiversity-based farming and uptake critically depends on society's willingness to pay for associated delivery of public goods such as biodiversity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jeroen Scheper
- Plant Ecology and Nature Conservation Group, Wageningen University, 6700 AAWageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Isabelle Badenhausser
- Unité de Recherche Pluridisciplinaire Prairies Plantes Fourragères, Institut national de recherche pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement, F-86600Lusignan, France
| | - Jochen Kantelhardt
- Institute of Agricultural and Forestry Economics, Department of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, 1180Vienna, Austria
| | - Stefan Kirchweger
- Studienzentrum für Internationale Analysen–Schlierbach, Studienzentrum für Internationale Analysen, 4553Schlierbach, Austria
| | - Ignasi Bartomeus
- Estación Biológica de Doñana – Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, E-41092Sevilla, Spain
| | - Vincent Bretagnolle
- Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, UMR7372, Centre national de la recherche scientifique & Université de La Rochelle, F-79360Villiers-en-Bois, France
- Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research platform « Zone Atelier Plaine & Val de Sèvre », 79360Villiers-en-Bois, France
| | - Yann Clough
- Centre for Environmental and Climate Science, Lund University, 22362Lund, Sweden
| | - Nicolas Gross
- Université Clermont Auvergne, l’Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement, VetAgro Sup, Unité Mixte de Recherche 212 Ecosystème Prairial, F-63000Clermont-Ferrand, France
| | - Ivo Raemakers
- Independent amateur entomologist, 6247CGGronsveld, The Netherlands
| | - Montserrat Vilà
- Estación Biológica de Doñana – Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, E-41092Sevilla, Spain
- Department of Plant Biology and Ecology, Facultad de Biología, University of Sevilla, 41012Sevilla, Spain
| | - Carlos Zaragoza-Trello
- Estación Biológica de Doñana – Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, E-41092Sevilla, Spain
| | - David Kleijn
- Plant Ecology and Nature Conservation Group, Wageningen University, 6700 AAWageningen, The Netherlands
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Clough Y, Kirchweger S, Kantelhardt J. Field sizes and the future of farmland biodiversity in European landscapes. Conserv Lett 2020; 13:e12752. [PMID: 33519969 PMCID: PMC7816254 DOI: 10.1111/conl.12752] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/05/2019] [Revised: 07/30/2020] [Accepted: 08/02/2020] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Lower diversity of plant and animal farmland species are usually reported where cropland has been aggregated into larger fields, which raises prospects of curbing declines in European farmland biodiversity and associated ecosystem services by halting trends to field size increases associated to agricultural intensification, without having to set aside arable land for conservation. Here, we consider the factors underlying trade-offs between farmer income and biodiversity as mediated by field size at local and landscape scales, and how these trade-offs may be overcome. Field sizes are still increasing, facilitated by increasing farm sizes and land consolidation. Decreases in working time and fuel expenses when fields are larger, uptake of larger machinery and subsidies favoring larger farms provide incentives to manage land in larger units, putting farmland biodiversity further at risk. Yet, field size-mediated ecological-economic trade-offs are largely ignored in policy and research. We recommend internalizing the ecological effects of changes in landscape-scale field size into land consolidation scheme design, ensuring that EU Common Agricultural Policy post-2020 rewards farmers that maintain and recreate fine-grained landscapes where these are essential for farmland biodiversity targets, and reducing economic-ecological trade-offs by stimulating agricultural research and innovation for economically efficient yet biodiversity-friendly farming in fine-grained landscapes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yann Clough
- Faculty of ScienceCentre for Environmental and Climate ResearchLund UniversityLundSweden
| | | | - Jochen Kantelhardt
- Department of Economics and Social Science, Institute of Agricultural and Forestry EconomicsUniversity of Natural Resources and Life SciencesViennaAustria
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Kirchweger S, Clough Y, Kapfer M, Steffan-Dewenter I, Kantelhardt J. Do improved pollination services outweigh farm-economic disadvantages of working in small-structured agricultural landscapes? - Development and application of a bio-economic model. Ecol Econ 2020; 169:106535. [PMID: 32879640 PMCID: PMC7115987 DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.106535] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Increases in the size of agricultural fields, the loss of permanent green field edges and other semi-natural habitats have accompanied the intensification of agriculture, and are still ongoing. From a farm economic perspective, an increase in field size increases efficiency mainly due to cost savings. However, recent evidence suggests that increases in field size might lead to the loss of ecosystem services provided by farmland biodiversity, but this trade-off is rarely considered. Here, we aim to quantify the economic and ecological effects of these changes by developing a bio-economic simulation-based land-use modelling framework based on spatially explicit data from an agricultural region in Germany. The results show a substantial decrease in flower visitation in oilseed rape when field sizes increase and permanent green edges are lost. This also leads to a decrease in pollination from wild bees and affects yields and farm economics. However, this loss in agricultural gross margin is overcompensated by economic gains of field enlargement. We conclude that further, more comprehensive evaluations are required and suggest that maintaining fine-grained agricultural landscapes with permanent field margins in the long term may require incentives to farmers, as well as innovations that allow to farm small fields at lower costs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stefan Kirchweger
- STUDIA – Schlierbach, Studienzentrum für Internationale Analysen, Panoramaweg 1, 4553 Schlierbach, Austria
| | - Yann Clough
- Centre for Environmental and Climate Research, Faculty of Science, Lund University, Ecology Building, Sölvegatan 37, SE-223 62 Lund, Sweden
| | - Martin Kapfer
- Institute of Business management and Agrarian Structure, Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture, Menzinger Str. 54, 80638 München, Germany
| | - Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter
- Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Biocenter, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg, Germany
| | - Jochen Kantelhardt
- Institute of Agricultural and Forestry Economics, Department of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Feistmantelstraße 4, 1180 Vienna, Austria
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