Measuring Agro-Biodiversity through Leverage Factors: Land Use, Farmer Practices and Public Policies

Abstract

Understanding the socio-economic channels through which farmers affect agro-biodiversity (ABD) represents a relevant research area, especially in the light of the new sustainable development paradigm. Supporting ABD is one of the main goals of the EU Green Deal and the agricultural sector is being called on for a higher commitment. Nowadays, ABD interventions are linked not only to the genetic and natural resources of species, but also to farming practices, land management, living standards in rural areas and all the policy interventions supporting them. However, the existing literature is still mainly focused on the environmental and agronomic perspectives. This paper aims to assess the extent to which different socio-economic and policy factors affect the performance of farmers in supporting ABD at the territorial level. Starting from the FADN data and focusing on Italy, we built a new regional comprehensive indicator that accounts for three levers through which farmers mostly interact and can influence ABD: land use strategies, agriculture practices and management decisions, and Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funds. Results reveal a heterogeneous spectrum of indicator scores at the regional level. Land use strategies have a significant relevance for the North-East regions and the Islands (Sicily and Sardinia), whereas agricultural practices emerge as the primary influential factors in the Centre and South. Policy funds dominate in the North-West, reflecting the greater expenditure capacity of the northern regions. These findings have important policy implications for the future of the CAP and the biodiversity EU strategy.

Towards Sustainable Agriculture: A Critical Analysis of Agrobiodiversity Assessment Methods and Recommendations for Effective Implementation

“…Suppose that it is not possible to identify theoretical recommended values. In that case, the lower and upper thresholds can be defined according to the minimums and maximums (min-max) of a set of agents, such as countries, regions, projects, or farms, among others [7,30,31,35,36]. This method does not consider the discrepancy between the actual value of an indicator and the desired value.…”

“…The study performed by Switek, Sawinska, and Głowicka-Wołoszyn [30] identified socio-economic factors, such as gender and age of the farmer, and the size of the farm, which are associated with higher scores in terms of the natural attractiveness of farms. Additionally, the agrobiodiversity index proposed by Henke and Vaquero-Piñeiro [31] can be used to evaluate farmers' involvement in activities that enhance biodiversity and verify if one mechanism, captured by a specific dimension of the index, is more relevant than others.…”

“…As an alternative, Quintero and Daza-Cruz [38] considered the number of species (species richness) as an indicator of biodiversity. Some studies used not only diversity indicators to measure biodiversity status but also included management practices as relevant indicators of agrobiodiversity [7,31,34,38].…”

Agricultural Practices for Biodiversity Enhancement: Evidence and Recommendations for the Viticultural Sector

“…The selection of recommended practices for biodiversity enhancement and corresponding effects (e.g., productivity, pest control, and soil health, among others) focused on six agricultural variables with recognized influence on biodiversity performance. These included the diversity of plants [22], semi-natural habitats [23], conservation agriculture practices, namely soil cover [24] and reduced tillage [25], and the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides [26]. Several biodiversity assessment methodologies considered the diversity of plants [25,[27][28][29] and semi-natural habitats [25,[30][31][32] as relevant indicators of biodiversity performance.…”