The loss of biodiversity, alongside climate change, is currently one of the largest and most important challenges. It is believed that the current rate of species extinction, due to human influences, is several times higher than the natural extinction rate. Agriculture is the most important land use in Europe, with around 50% of the surface used for agricultural production. The relationship between EU agriculture and biodiversity has two faces. In the past, agriculture significantly contributed to increasing the diversity of landscapes and species in Europe, on one hand. On the other, intensive agriculture is one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss in the cultural landscape. Today, sound knowledge is available regarding food production and protection of biodiversity and ecosystems. But the knowledge is still not sufficiently considered and production methods not sufficiently adapted. One of the reasons is that biodiversity is still not a subject of a farmer´s education or further training nor do they receive consulting directly on the farm. The EU is a leading producer of wine (DG AGRI). Spain, Portugal and Turkey belong to the top ten countries in Europe with the largest vineyards – organic as well as conventional ones. Biodiversity assessment in agriculture is still quite innovative compared to other agrienvironmental indicators such as climate change, nutrient balances etc.. The project focuses on organic vine growers - farmers producing grapes in the vineyards - with a special focus on viticulture but taking sultana producers also into account. Organic vine growers have a self-motivation to improve their biodiversity performance because well-functioning ecosystems and a high diversity in earth and between vine rows are necessary for healthy grapes and a good quality. But vine growers do not carry out systematic analysis of their impacts on biodiversity on their whole farm and as they are in general small farms, run only by their owners, they do not have time to participate at time intensive and wide-ranging training courses. The partnership consists of nature conservation organizations and farmers/wine growers associations in Germany, Spain and Portugal as well as of an organic agriculture company in Turkey. The project aims on the exchange of experiences partner organizations made in the issue of vine growing and biodiversity to school each other and to develop information materials and specific biodiversity training modules. Vine growers will be schooled with the help of these materials on basic biodiversity knowledge and trained with the modules in the systematic analyses of their impacts on biodiversity. They additionally will receive individual trainings performed directly on the farm so they can implement recommendations for improvements directly into their daily work. With the results and experiences a Biodiversity Program – a roadmap for biodiversity improvements at farm level will be developed to help vine growers not participated at the training to enhance their biodiversity performance as well. Due to this approach time expenditure for further schooling activities for vine growers is reduced, vine growers have the knowledge to adapt production methods and can thereby specify their professional education and increase competitiveness. Moreover the sensitivity and knowledge of vine growers can be raised in these cultivation areas. Training of local NGOs ensures that vine growers will be schooled and new co-operations/training activities will be initiated and continued even after the funding period. And the project also supports the objectives of EU policy on biodiversity and contributes to achieve the objective of the EU Biodiversity Strategy.
The loss of biodiversity is one of the largest and most important challenges worldwide. The current rate of species extinction, due to human influences, is up to 1000 times higher than the natural extinction rate. Agriculture is the most important land use in Europe, with around 50% of the surface used for agricultural production. In the past, agriculture significantly contributed to increasing the diversity of landscapes and species in Europe. Today, intensive agriculture is one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss in the cultural landscape. Sound knowledge is available regarding food production and protection of biodiversity and ecosystems. But that knowledge is still not sufficiently considered and production methods not sufficiently adapted. One important reason for that is that biodiversity is still not enough considered in a farmer´s professional education or further training nor do they receive consulting directly on the farm. In addition, vine growers do not carry out systematic analyses of their impacts on biodiversity on their whole farm. The EU is a leading producer of wine. Spain, Portugal and Turkey belong to the top ten countries in Europe with the largest vineyards. The main target group of the project was the organic vine growers - farmers producing grapes in the vineyards - either for viticulture as for sultana production. As organic vine-growers work constantly on improving biodiversity in their fields, because vivid ecosystems and a high diversity in the soil and between vine rows are a prerequisite for healthy grapes and a good quality. However, the results are also interesting and applicable for conventional vine-growers. The project aimed at adapting vine-growing practices to protect, enhance and promote biodiversity in vineyards. This was achieved with a transfer of knowledge between the partners, to train each other and to develop high quality training materials for vine-growers. The training materials and the implementation of training courses contribute to specify the professional education of a vine-grower and to high quality VET. The partnership consisted of eight partners; of tandems between nature conservation organizations and farmer/wine grower associations in Germany, Spain and Portugal and of an organic agriculture company in Turkey. The partners are experienced in the topic of viticulture and/or biodiversity and while developing each output the exchange of those experiences and the training of each other was the first achievement. The training material support vine-growers to integrate biodiversity into their work. They consist of information materials where knowledge was made more accessible to vine-growers and of specific biodiversity training modules with a focus on systematic analyses of their impacts. All results are available in 5 languages: • Biodiversity Fact Sheet for vine-growers: explains biodiversity, shows links between viticulture and biodiversity and names best practices • Biodiversity Guide in viticulture: introduces on approx. 60 pages typical species in vineyards and gives some interesting facts. Icons were explicitly developed for that purpose indicates areas in the vineyards and measures to promote these species. • Educational videos: a number of videos introduce important measures for biodiversity in viticulture and outlines advantages of biodiversity for making good vines and sultanas. • Biodiversity Check: with this output, comprehensive individual training with external expertise is facilitated to assess potential negative impacts and give recommendations for improvement where necessary. • Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP): a catalogue of possible measures for all viticulture/grape growing relevant areas. It enables vine-growers to manage their biodiversity activities Due to the project, project partners could sharpen their profile in all aspects of biodiversity and viticulture and became national specialists in carrying out both biodiversity training modules. In addition all partner organizations implemented the outputs into their training programs and continue to work in this area. Vine-growers having already received individual trainings could specify their professional education and increase competitiveness. The outputs can be used in different scenarios: in training courses in agrarian schools/universities; advisors or technicians giving advice directly on the field or it can be used by the vine-growers directly. Due to this approach time expenditure for additional time-demanding schooling activities can be reduced. But vine growers still receive the needed knowledge to adapt production methods and to specify their professional education. Most of the outputs can be use directly or with the easy adaptations in other vine-growing regions or countries. The concept of the training materials can be used and adapted to other (agricultural) sectors. This already happened for example for banana production in Central America.