Suchergebnisse

European rural landscapes face today several changes, which might indicate that an ongoing transition process is taking place. While these transition processes have been mainly addressed for Western Europe and landscapes dominated by intensive agriculture, they remain to be understood in Southern Europe, where large areas are occupied by extensive farming systems, maintaining a distinctive landscape character. However in Mediterranean areas, new ways of managing the land arise, no longer by the conventional farmers alone but also by a multiplicity of other land managers. Nevertheless, the dominant discourse in the farm sector, both in politics and in individuals, is still focused on production. Therefore to better assess the potential of land managers to adapt to changes and to meet the expectations that society articulates towards the farming sector, a description of the land managers' diversity deserves a renewed attention. A number of questions remain unanswered or only partially answered. Which land managers are contributing more to the changes happening? Which are the drivers that encourage or prevent innovation and changes in the holdings? Do all farmers behave in the same way? Does the attitudes-thoughts get translated into actual behavior-actions? In order to answer these questions a land managers' typology anchored on the multifunctional transition framework is proposed. It aims to understand which land manager type contributes more to the multifunctional transition bounded by non-productivist and productivist strategies in place. This typology exploits the combination between the behaviors-action in the holding and the expressed attitudes-thoughts. To achieve this typology, 373 questionnaires were completed by land managers in South Portugal. Results reveal in some cases inconsistencies between land managers attitudes and their action, in an opposite sense to what has been earlier identified in Northwestern Europe, and reflecting the heterogeneity of Mediterranean agriculture and land ownership. Thus, an understanding of the land managers types will lead us to a better understanding of what are land managers looking for in the landscape they use. This knowledge can support better oriented policies and management decision, certainly more easily accepted by land managers since their views, behaviors, attitudes and opinions are taken in consideration

The Mediterranean silvo-pastoral system known as Montado, in Portugal, is a complex land use system composed of an open tree stratum in various densities and an herbaceous layer, used for livestock grazing. Livestock also profit from the acorns, and the grazing contributes to avoid shrub encroachment. In the last 20 years, subsidies from the European Union have greatly promoted cattle rearing in this system and the introduction of heavy breeds, at the expense of sheep, goats or the native cattle breeds. The balance of the traditional system is thus threatened, and a precise assessment of the balance between the different components of the system, therefore is highly needed. The goal of this study was to gain a better understanding of a Montado farm system with cattle rearing as the major economic activity by applying the emergy evaluation method to calculate indices of yield, investment, environmental loading and sustainability. By integrating different ecosystem components, the emergy evaluation method allows a comprehensive evaluation of this complex and multifunctional system at the scale of an individual farm. This method provides a set of indices that can help us understand the system and design management strategies that maximize emergy flow in the farm. In this paper, we apply the emergy evaluation method to a Montado farm with cattle rearing, as a way to gain a better understanding of this system at the farm scale. The value for the transformity of veal (2.66E+06 sej J−1) is slightly higher, when compared to other systems producing protein. That means that the investment of nature and man in this product was higher and it requires a premium price on the market. The renewability for Holm Oaks Farm (49 %), lower than for other similar systems, supports the assumption that this is a farm in which, comparing with others, the number of purchased inputs in relation to renewable inputs provided by nature, is higher. The Emergy Investment Ratio is 0.91 for cattle rearing compared to a value of 0.49 for cork and 0.43 for firewood harvesting, making it clear that cattle rearing is a more labor demanding activity comparing with extractive activities as cork and firewood harvesting.

Landscape is defined by the European Landscape Convention as "an area perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors". Many efforts have been devoted in addressing the core concepts on which this definition roots: perception and interaction of men and nature, but when coming to large (continental) scale assessments, the latter prevail on the former. This paper aims at presenting a framework for a measurable landscape awareness indicator as a key link to the public demand for a specific type of landscape: the agricultural landscape. This is a necessary effort to complement more physically based assessments, which include as well the impact of human activities on landscapes. The analysis is carried out at different levels of governance: EU and regional, using an example from the Alentejo region in Portugal and EU wide databases, and addresses conceptual and practical questions: what type of societal landscape awareness can be monitored and by whom (e.g., individuals, specific social groups, society as a whole); what are the landscape dimensions that should be assessed; what are the limitations imposed by data-related constraints. By applying the methodology to build composite indicators to map landscape societal awareness, the paper shows the regional and local meaning of indicator approaches developed at European level, presents developments for downscaling to regional level, while introducing the social component to support sound policy development for European rural landscapes.

There is increasing recognition that agricultural landscapes meet multiple societal needs and demands beyond provision of economic and environmental goods and services. Accordingly, there have been significant calls for the inclusion of societal, amenity and cultural values in agri-environmental landscape indicators to assist policy makers in monitoring the wider impacts of land-based policies. However, capturing the amenity and cultural values that rural agrarian areas provide, by use of such indicators, resents significant challenges. The EU social awareness of landscape indicator represents a new class of generalized social indicator using a top–down methodology to capture the social dimensions of land-scape without reference to the specific structural and cultural characteristics of individual landscapes. This paper reviews this indicator in the context of existing agri-environmental indicators and their differing design concepts. Using a stakeholder consultation approach in five case study regions, the potential and limitations of the indicator are evaluated, with a particular focus on its perceived meaning, utility and performance in the context of different user groups and at different geographical scales. This analysis supplements previous EU-wide assessments, through regional scale assessment of the limitations and potentialities of the indicator and the need for further data collection. The evaluation finds that the perceived meaning of the indicator does not vary with scale, but in common with all mapped indicators, the usefulness of the indicator, to different user groups, does change with scale of presentation. This indicator is viewed as most useful when presented at the scale of governance at which end users operate. The relevance of the different sub-components of the indicator are also found to vary across regions

[EN] The contribution of small farms to local food supply, food security and food sovereignty is widely acknowledged at a global level. In the particular case of Europe, they often are seen as an alternative to large and specialised farms. Assessing the real role of small farms has been limited by a lack of information, as small farms are frequently omitted from agricultural censuses and national statistics. It is also well acknowledged that small farms differ widely, and are distributed according to different spatial patterns across Europe, fulfilling different roles according to the agriculture and territorial characteristics of each region. This paper presents the result of a novel classification of small farms at NUTS-3 level in Europe, according to the relevance of small farms in the agricultural and territorial context of each region, and based on a typology of small farms considering different dimensions of farm size. The maps presented result from an extensive data collection and variables selected according to European wide expert judgement, analysed with advanced cluster procedures. The results provide a fine grained picture of the role of small farms at the regional level in Europe today, and are expected to support further data analysis and targeted policy intervention. ; This work was supported by the SALSA project (Small farms, small food businesses and sustainable food and nutrition security) (Project ID: 677,363) funded under H2020-EU.3.2. Societal Challenges - Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy; and by FEDER Funds through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors - COMPETE and National Funds through FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology. Helen Sooväli-Sepping was funded by the Estonian Ministry of Education target-financed project IUT3-2 Culturescapes in transformation: towards an integrated theory of meaning making. ; Guiomar, N.; Godinho, S.; Pinto-Correia, T.; Almeida, M.; Bartolini, F.; Bezák, ...

784 798 75 ; S ; [EN] The contribution of small farms to local food supply, food security and food sovereignty is widely acknowledged at a global level. In the particular case of Europe, they often are seen as an alternative to large and specialised farms. Assessing the real role of small farms has been limited by a lack of information, as small farms are frequently omitted from agricultural censuses and national statistics. It is also well acknowledged that small farms differ widely, and are distributed according to different spatial patterns across Europe, fulfilling different roles according to the agriculture and territorial characteristics of each region. This paper presents the result of a novel classification of small farms at NUTS-3 level in Europe, according to the relevance of small farms in the agricultural and territorial context of each region, and based on a typology of small farms considering different dimensions of farm size. The maps presented result from an extensive data collection and variables selected according to European wide expert judgement, analysed with advanced cluster procedures. The results provide a fine grained picture of the role of small farms at the regional level in Europe today, and are expected to support further data analysis and targeted policy intervention. This work was supported by the SALSA project (Small farms, small food businesses and sustainable food and nutrition security) (Project ID: 677,363) funded under H2020-EU.3.2. Societal Challenges - Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy; and by FEDER Funds through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors - COMPETE and National Funds through FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology. Helen Sooväli-Sepping was funded by the Estonian Ministry of Education target-financed project IUT3-2 Culturescapes in transformation: towards an integrated theory of meaning making. Guiomar, N.; Godinho, S.; Pinto-Correia, T.; Almeida, M.; Bartolini, ...

Due to their complex structure and traditional low-intensity management, Portuguese oak woodland rangelands known as montados are often considered high nature value (HNV) farming systems, and as such, they may be deemed eligible for subsidies and incentives by governmental and nongovernmental agencies. Too little is known about how the HNV concept might be applied to conserve complex silvopastoral systems. These systems, due to their structural and functional complexity at multiple scales, tend to support high levels of biodiversity. Montados are in sharp decline as a result of the rapid specialization of land management that, through simplification, undermines multifunctionality. Understanding how changes in management influence these systems and their biodiversity is needed for prioritizing conservation efforts and for ensuring they remain HNV systems. On the basis of a field survey in 58 plots distributed among 29 paddocks on 17 farms, we conducted an integrated analysis of the relationship between grazing intensity and biodiversity in montados of similar biophysical and structural characteristics. Data on management were obtained through interviews, and biodiversity data (vegetation, macrofungi, birds, herpetofauna) were obtained through specific field protocols. Additional spatial data, such as soil characteristics, slope, land cover, and linear landscape elements, were also analyzed. The results show no overall biodiversity variation as a result of different management practices. However, different groups of species react differently to specific management practices, and within a pasture, grazing impacts are heterogenous. In low grazing intensity plots, macrofungi species richness was found to be higher, while bird species richness was lower. Using tree regeneration as proxy for montado sustainability, results show less tree regeneration in areas with higher forage quality and more intense grazing. Pathways for future progress are proposed, including creating areas within a paddock that attract grazing away from where regeneration is desired.