Farm2forest: Evaluating impacts of agricultural policy reform on biodiversity and ecosystem services in mixed farming-forestry landscapes

Farming in marginal areas with its resulting mosaic of forests, afforestation, and active and passive farmland contributes to the maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem services in Europe. Such areas are though heavily supported by Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payments. It is unclear how projected CAP reform after 2020, in conjunction with the rise of the bio-based economy, will affect (1) the shares and spatial distribution of farming, forestry and intermediate land-use forms in marginal areas, (2) how and where biodiversity and ecosystem services will be affected at the landscape scale, and (3) what alternative policy (e.g. results-based payments, regional prioritization) might efficiently ensure their preservation. This project addresses these questions in a spatially-explicit manner for marginal farming areas in Sweden by explicitly considering interactions between agriculture and forestry, which has not been done before. Existing agricultural agent-based models will be extended for forestry using data compiled in this project. Predictions for the different policy scenarios will be translated to GIS landscape models, and available biodiversity and ecosystem models will be used to assess their impact. The project should contribute to better understanding and decision support when considering interactions between agriculture and forestry for biodiversity and ecosystem services policy in Europe.

Farm2Forest: Effects of agricultural policy reform on biodiversity and ecosystem services in mixed farming-forestry landscapes. - portal.research.lu.se