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The transition towards a sustainable and circular bioeconomy (CBE) is debated in European Union (EU) policy-making, at least since the first official Bioeconomy Strategy 2012 and during its update in 2018. Actors in different discourse coalitions utter conflicting narratives to (de-)legitimize both visions of why and what form of EU CBE is desirable as well as pathways to achieve these visions. Currently, CBE controversies on the EU level seem to be very polarized: Industry organizations and the core group of European Commission (COM) units involved in the further development of the Bioeconomy Strategy promote new technologies to increase the circular use of bio-resources, whereas environmental NGOs and parts of the COM point out adverse sustainability effects of increasing the use of bio-resources.

Reconciling productive agricultural practices with nature conservation is not only an ecological challenge, but also a demanding matter of governance. This paper analyses the potential as well as the limitations of various governance arrangements, and explores ways to enhance the governance of nature conservation in agricultural landscapes. We assume four conditions to contribute to the performance of these arrangements: farmers should be motivated, demanded, enabled, and legitimized to participate in arrangements that promote nature conservation by farmers. We analyse 10 distinct Dutch governance arrangements in the period 2000?2016, including agri-environment schemes but also privately initiated arrangements. The arrangements target a large but unknown share of farmers and farmlands, but nature conservation ambition levels are generally low to moderate. The expected low-to-moderate performance is associated with a low-to-moderate motivation, demand, and ability. Underlying are stronger forces driving towards intensification and problems farmers face in recuperating the cost of nature conservation. New greening requirements in the EU Common Agricultural Policy and in agri-food supply chains are first, cautious steps addressing these fundamental drivers of ecological degradation. More ambitious greening requirements may contribute to a higher motivation and ability of larger groups of farmers to implement nature conservation measures.