| Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2019 |
| Title |
Farmers’ management of functional biodiversity goes beyond pest management in organic European apple orchards. 284, 1-11. |
| Journal |
Agriculture, Ecosystem & Environment |
| Volume |
284 |
| Pages |
1-11 |
| Endnote keywords |
Ecosystem service, Stakeholder value, Tracking innovation, On-farmconservation practice, Practitioner’sdecision-making |
| Endnote Keywords |
Ecosystem service, Stakeholder value, Tracking innovation, On-farmconservation practice, Practitioner’sdecision-making |
| Abstract |
To favor beneficials and natural biological control processes, functional biodiversity (FB) is an environmental-friendly and promising approach to reduce pesticide use in perennial cultures such as apple orchards especially in organic farming. However, little is known about farmers’ practices and motivations to implement techniques to favor FB (FB-techniques), especially whether they really expect anything from FB in terms of pest regulation. FB techniques are in fact massively put into questions by practitioners due to inadequate information on their effectiveness. A survey across nine European countries was performed to (i) describe farmers’ practices and identify promising techniques, to (ii) better understand their perceptions and expectations towards FB, and (iii) identify potential drivers of (non)-adoption. 55 advisors and 125 orchard managers with various degree of experience and conviction about FB were interviewed and described 24 FB-techniques. Some were very popular and old-established ones (e.g. hedges and bird houses) while others were more marginal and recent (e.g. animal introduction and compost). These techniques fell under three different strategies: long-term ecological infrastructure, dynamic practices and to a lesser extent redesign techniques. In average, farmers combine more than four techniques implemented since 13 years mostly implemented during farmers’ settlement period or conversion period. Despite this anteriority, farmers have difficulties to estimate the effectiveness of the FB-techniques on pest regulation. They in fact considered FB-techniques as a whole and argued that assessment should consider not one specific FB-technique but their combination. They also emphasized a very global approach targeting multiple species and expecting multiple ecosystem services beyond pest regulation. Other considerations include economic, environmental, agronomic, working conditions, and technical values. However, the techniques implemented and associated values differed among farmers, who proved to adopt various approaches towards FB. Three different approaches were defined : passive, active and multifunctional. The evaluation issue is all the more so that appreciation change with time and experience. The more farmers implemented techniques for a long time, the more benefits and values they mentioned. These findings confirm the increased need for collaboration between researchers, farmers and advisors to target research, advisory support and communication more in adequacy to farmers’ reality and opportunities. |
| Fichier |
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| Authors |
Penvern, S., Fernique, S., Cardona, A., Herz, A., Ahrenfeldt, E., Jamar, L., Korsgaard, M., Kruzynska, D., Matray, S., Ozolina-Pole, L., Porcel, M., Ralle, B., Steinemann, B., Swiergiel, W., Tasin, M., Telfser. j, , Warlop, F., Dufils, A., Sigsgaard, L. |
