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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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