CONTEXT Farmland occupies 40% of the area of the EU, and farming practices strongly influence biodiversity conservation, ecosystem service delivery, climate change and the quality of soil, air and water. We applied for this project because we detected that farmers all over Europe, in the context of Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs), were virtually applying only the indirect, low-value conservation actions (96,5%), such as catch crops or nitrogen fixing crops over the most direct, high-value conservation actions (only 3,5%), such as conservation of field margins, forests or ponds (non-productive agricultural lands, NPAL). Reports suggest that one of the reasons why direct conservation measures are avoided is a lack of understanding and/or know-how about 1) the many benefits of NPAL conservation for farming and its productivity: pollination, pest control, water regulation, climate change mitigation, etc 2) the importance of conserving these areas for nature, health and society. The current situation, combined with the lack of success of CAP's greening, threatens to deepen the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the EU. Thus, we decided to design tools to build the capacity of farmers and agricultural technicians in such topics. OBJECTIVES The main objective of this project was to build the capacity of farmers and agricultural technicians (knowledge, practical tools and know-how) in the conservation of non-productive agricultural lands, in order to boost the implementation of the most direct and effective conservation actions. The specific objectives were: - to elaborate free, open, tailored, high-quality, practical and complementary tools to build up the skills and empower farmers and their assessors and trainers. - to provide free, tailored, high quality trainings for the main stakeholders involved in the conservation of NPAL (non-productive agricultural lands, such as ponds, hedges, field margins or tree lines) - to enhance the collaboration among farmers, agricultural and conservation technicians and other stakeholders to preserve NPAL and make farmlands more resilient in general terms METHODOLOGY - tailored to the background and capabilities of our main targets - practical and providing tangible results to participants - fostering the cooperation among stakeholders - aiming to change the current views of our targets on nature conservation and its ecosystem service delivery RESULTS AND IMPACT The main output was a the creation of a 140-page toolkit for farmers and agricultural technicians named "Farming benefits of nature conservation" in 7 languages (English, Spanish, French, Italian, Czech, Romanian and Catalan), that deals with the main 7 semi-natural habitats on farmlands, gives insights about the relationships between nature and agriculture and tips on how to look for support and how to communicate our actions. The toolkit is available online on our website (http://resifarms.eu/toolkit/). As a complement, powerpoint-like presentations (used in the face-to-face trainings conducted) were created as support material and are available as summaries of the main tools in several languages. The second most important output was the creation of four videos, recorded in the 5 countries participating in the project (subtitled in seven languages) and related to the main tools of the toolkit (ponds; hedgerows; open spaces; and "biodiversity, the core of agriculture"). The videos had the goal of explaining in a more simple, visual and exemplified way the contents of the most important tools created. The videos are available at https://www.youtube.com/user/fundacioemys. More than 2200 participants were directly impacted by the project, if we consider all toolkit downloads (1155), videos watched (652) and participants engaged in the activities (442 in face-to-face trainings, disseminations and volunteering events). From these, we know that the two most reached groups were farmers and conservation technicians, followed by agricultural technicians, public administration technicians and policymakers. Aside from the effect on our targets, our organizations greatly benefited in terms of new knowledge and techniques (notably Ecodiag), new relationships and experiences during the project, allowing us to improve the conservation in the farmlands we have in land stewardship.
The main objective of this project was to build the capacity of farmers and agricultural technicians (knowledge, practical tools and know-how) in the conservation of non-productive agricultural lands, in order to boost the implementation of the most direct and effective conservation actions. The specific objectives defined in the submission were: 1) to elaborate free, open, tailored, high-quality, practical and complementary tools to build up the skills and empower farmers and their assessors and trainers. 2) to provide free, tailored, high quality (online*) trainings for the main stakeholders involved in the conservation of NPAL (non-productive agricultural lands, such as ponds, hedges, field margins or tree lines) 3) to enhance the collaboration among farmers, agricultural and conservation technicians and other stakeholders to preserve NPAL and make farmlands more resilient in general terms We consider all the objectives have been achieved, despite the major budget change that the project suffered after the resolution. Maybe the largest change was the fact of changing the trainings from an online training platform to mostly face-to-face/practical, due to elimination of IO3 and IO4 and its budget.
Farmland occupies 40% of the area of the EU, and farming practices strongly influence biodiversity conservation, ecosystem service delivery, climate change and the quality of soil, air and water. We applied for this project because we detected that farmers all over Europe, in the context of Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs), were virtually applying only the indirect, low-value conservation actions (96,5%), such as catch crops or nitrogen fixing crops over the most direct, high-value conservation actions (only 3,5%), such as conservation of field margins, forests or ponds (non-productive agricultural lands, NPAL). Reports suggest that one of the reasons why direct conservation measures are avoided is a lack of understanding and/or know-how about 1) the many benefits of NPAL conservation for farming and its productivity: pollination, pest control, water regulation, climate change mitigation, etc 2) the importance of conserving these areas for nature, health and society. The current situation, combined with the lack of success of CAP's greening, threatens to deepen in the loss of biodiversity and ecosystemic services in the EU. Thus, we decided to design tools to build the capacity of farmers and agricultural techincians in such topics.
CONTEXT Farmland occupies 40% of the area of the EU, and farming practices strongly influence biodiversity conservation, ecosystem service delivery, climate change and the quality of soil, air and water. We applied for this project because we detected that farmers all over Europe, in the context of Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs), were virtually applying only the indirect, low-value conservation actions (96,5%), such as catch crops or nitrogen fixing crops over the most direct, high-value conservation actions (only 3,5%), such as conservation of field margins, forests or ponds (non-productive agricultural lands, NPAL). Reports suggest that one of the reasons why direct conservation measures are avoided is a lack of understanding and/or know-how about 1) the many benefits of NPAL conservation for farming and its productivity: pollination, pest control, water regulation, climate change mitigation, etc 2) the importance of conserving these areas for nature, health and society. The current situation, combined with the lack of success of CAP's greening, threatens to deepen the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the EU. Thus, we decided to design tools to build the capacity of farmers and agricultural technicians in such topics. OBJECTIVES The main objective of this project was to build the capacity of farmers and agricultural technicians (knowledge, practical tools and know-how) in the conservation of non-productive agricultural lands, in order to boost the implementation of the most direct and effective conservation actions. The specific objectives were: - to elaborate free, open, tailored, high-quality, practical and complementary tools to build up the skills and empower farmers and their assessors and trainers. - to provide free, tailored, high quality trainings for the main stakeholders involved in the conservation of NPAL (non-productive agricultural lands, such as ponds, hedges, field margins or tree lines) - to enhance the collaboration among farmers, agricultural and conservation technicians and other stakeholders to preserve NPAL and make farmlands more resilient in general terms METHODOLOGY - tailored to the background and capabilities of our main targets - practical and providing tangible results to participants - fostering the cooperation among stakeholders - aiming to change the current views of our targets on nature conservation and its ecosystem service delivery RESULTS AND IMPACT The main output was a the creation of a 140-page toolkit for farmers and agricultural technicians named "Farming benefits of nature conservation" in 7 languages (English, Spanish, French, Italian, Czech, Romanian and Catalan), that deals with the main 7 semi-natural habitats on farmlands, gives insights about the relationships between nature and agriculture and tips on how to look for support and how to communicate our actions. The toolkit is available online on our website (http://resifarms.eu/toolkit/). As a complement, powerpoint-like presentations (used in the face-to-face trainings conducted) were created as support material and are available as summaries of the main tools in several languages. The second most important output was the creation of four videos, recorded in the 5 countries participating in the project (subtitled in seven languages) and related to the main tools of the toolkit (ponds; hedgerows; open spaces; and "biodiversity, the core of agriculture"). The videos had the goal of explaining in a more simple, visual and exemplified way the contents of the most important tools created. The videos are available at https://www.youtube.com/user/fundacioemys. More than 2200 participants were directly impacted by the project, if we consider all toolkit downloads (1155), videos watched (652) and participants engaged in the activities (442 in face-to-face trainings, disseminations and volunteering events). From these, we know that the two most reached groups were farmers and conservation technicians, followed by agricultural technicians, public administration technicians and policymakers. Aside from the effect on our targets, our organizations greatly benefited in terms of new knowledge and techniques (notably Ecodiag), new relationships and experiences during the project, allowing us to improve the conservation in the farmlands we have in land stewardship.