Farmer clusters for Realising Agrobiodiversity Management across Ecosystems

Project Information

FRAMEwork

Grant agreement ID: 862731

DOI

10.3030/862731

Project closed

EC signature date 30 June 2020

Start date 1 October 2020

End date 30 September 2025

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy

Total cost

€ 7 997 600,76

EU contribution

€ 7 997 600,76

Coordinated by

THE JAMES HUTTON INSTITUTE
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - FRAMEwork (Farmer clusters for Realising Agrobiodiversity Management across Ecosystems)

Reporting period: 2023-10-01 to 2024-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Agriculture is a significant contributor to the global decline in biodiversity. Alternative approaches to intensive agriculture or efforts to change practice through legislation (e.g. Common Agriculture Policy, Sustainable use of Pesticides Directive) have, so far, had limited effect. Current mechanisms for compensating and encouraging farmers to apply biodiversity sensitive management strategies are often inefficient with low levels of adoption. They seldom support landscape scale approaches or account for regional needs or circumstances. Also, when adopted, monitoring is rarely carried out so there is little scope to evaluate the success of the strategies implemented. A fresh approach to the design, implementation, and monitoring of biodiversity sensitive farming is therefore urgently required.

The FRAMEwork project is a novel initiative, combining research, innovation, and exploratory implementation to promote a transition to biodiversity sensitive farming that will support biodiversity and benefit from the ecosystem services biodiversity provides, while guarding against any potential risks. To achieve this, the project seeks to design, implement, and evaluate the FRAMEwork System for Biodiversity Sensitive Farming. This acknowledges the foundational role of farmers in generating effective biodiversity management strategies by placing Farmer Clusters, local groups of farmers working as a collective to deliver landscape scale management, at its heart. A Cluster Facilitator, helps farmers work with other local actors to identify and progress towards shared sustainability goals, and to access specialist knowledge and resources to support biodiversity monitoring and management. Cluster farmers and facilitators are supported in building a community of practice through the open access online platform (Recodo) for sharing activities, information, data and resources between farmers, scientists, policy makers, and citizens. In this way, the FRAMEwork project seeks to introduce an ecologically sound, technically robust, and socio-economically desirable solution to biodiversity sensitive farming in Europe.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Eleven farmer clusters were successfully established, operating in 10 countries in a variety of economic and environmental settings. Since 2021, clusters have:
- set local objectives and introduce a range of activities to support biodiversity;
- organised and participated in activities to build and share knowledge and experience of nature friendly farming, farmed landscapes, and agrobiodiversity;
- developed partnerships with local and national organisations, to support the common aim of biodiversity conservation and rural sustainability.

New strategies and tools for monitoring biodiversity were developed involving experts, farmers, and the wider public. Facilitators were trained on fresh protocols. Completed surveys across all clusters, provided extensive datasets on the diversity of habitats, vegetation, pollinators and farmland birds, plus other taxa or functional groups of local interest.

Established UK and EU clusters' experience contributed to the development of training and guidance materials for the establishment and operation of Farmer Clusters and to support facilitators. A new online platform (Recodo) provides access to a wealth of resources for those interested in the interface of farming and nature. It includes specialist resources such as FEAST, a tool being developed to help farmers identify the most effective and viable solutions to agrobiodiversity management, and enables clusters to share their activities and experiences.

Analysis of surveys and qualitative interviews with farmers and facilitators has improved understanding of farmer attitudes, pointing to the factors that lead to an increase in biodiversity appreciation as a driver of engagement in cluster activities and the adoption of biodiversity sensitive practices. Working with this knowledge, FRAMEwork has explored new avenues for financial incentives to support clusters through public and private schemes.

The ecological processes that underpin the relationship between biodiversity and farming have been highlighted. By revisiting the substantial body of existing literature, gaps in consolidated knowledge have been identified. In response, targeted, deeper investigations using bibliographic and modelling approaches are progressing to tackle key uncertainties in best-practice for biodiversity management. Transitions to biodiversity sensitive farming will be complex across the diversity of cluster contexts and experiences. By evaluating the social, economic, and environmental conditions of the clusters, insight into the drivers and barriers to cluster progress is being brought into focus. Also emerging from this work are valuable insights into the specific regional needs of farmers exploring sustainability in the face of adverse environmental impacts. These research strands are informing a system-level examination through the development of social-ecological systems models and natural asset profiling methods, to explore the wider costs and benefits of the cluster approach, biodiversity sensitive farming, and the impact these have on system change.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Changes are needed in agriculture to reverse declines in biodiversity and reinstate the ecological fabric on which farming depends. FRAMEwork combines a participatory approach with systems research to map and explore routes by which European and UK agriculture can achieve this, placing the project at the forefront of research efforts to support change in agri-food systems.

At the heart of the project lies the formation and development of 11 clusters as primers for an emerging network of Advanced Clusters, a platform for co-innovation, and as a testbed for evaluating the transition process. In 4 years, project clusters have given rise to a rich variety of activities: addressing the management and monitoring of biodiversity, establishing new relationships with stakeholders, and hosting public events and citizen science activities. Locally transformative, these activities are playing a role in increasing awareness in each of the 10 countries we are operating. Where interest is growing, we are playing a galvanising role beyond cluster boundaries, e.g. working with a range of organisations on the establishment of new farmer clusters. Engagement is also ongoing with public, private, and third-sector organisations focused on agriculture’s role in broader regional sustainability priorities. FRAMEwork is working with statutory bodies to help advance new pro-cluster policies with a focus on viable regional solutions.

The reach of these activities will be greatly increased as the Recodo platform continues to be rolled out, supporting the creation of a continent-wide cluster community, and providing a space for organisations and people with interests in nature and farming to engage and learn about the landscape scale, collective knowledge base of farmer clusters and those that support them.

The potential of FRAMEwork to contribute to the growth of biodiversity sensitive farming through the Farmer Cluster approach relies on scientific and technical innovations. In addition to the impact synergy offered by this approach, the knowledge and tools being developed will also deliver standalone impact in wider areas of research, practice, and policy.

Recodo Logo

Project Logo