Realising agrobiodiversity management across ecosystems with farmer clusters

Preserving and enhancing agrobiodiversity is often hindered by property borders at the landscape level. To overcome this barrier, farmer clusters were established across 10 countries within the European project FRAMEwork, where farmers collaborate for preserving and enhancing agrobiodiversity. Each cluster has its specific set of crops, lifestock and value chains. For instance, the farmers of the cluster in Luxembourg produce fruit (apple, pear, plum, quince) in traditional high stem orchards. All of them sell their fruit to the local cider producer Ramborn. Ramborn encourages the delivery of fruit from specific cultivars separately for producing ciders with a characteristic colour and taste by paying a premium and supports farmers in maintaining old fruit cultivars. An agri-environmental scheme was identified that covers parts of the costs of (1) pruning and (2) the removal of the parasitic mistletoes from old trees. A biologist with a strong background in biodiversity assessments serves as facilitator of common efforts in each cluster. These common efforts may be limited to the farmers of the cluster (for instance when farm management practices are changed throughout the cluster), or, include citizens (for instance in Bioblitz events). Furthermore, the facilitators coordinate and carry out strictly standardized biodiversity assessments in each cluster and corresponding control areas. Initial assessments in the Luxembourg cluster around orchards have shown a relatively high level of biodiversity in vegetation, pollinators and birds for an agricultural landscape. Nonetheless, the greatest biodiversity was observed in the margins of cropped and grazed lands, indicating that biodiversity-friendly farming practices should be implemented to accommodate more species toward the core of these lands. Efficacy of biodiversity-sensitivity farming approaches will be assessed by comparing the status before and after intervention as well as by comparing areas with and without intervention (i.e. control areas). Further ...