LIFE shares experience on result-based agriculture payment schemes for biodiversity

Farmers are custodians of a wide range of semi-natural habitats, but they often struggle to get the support they need for adopting farming practices that benefit the natural environment. One approach that has been explored and promoted by a number of LIFE projects across EU are result-based agri-environment payment schemes (RBAPS), where farmers and landowners receive funding for delivering measurable conservation improvements.  

More than 100 conservation experts, policy makers and members of the agricultural community gathered in Leven, Belgium, earlier in October for a LIFE Platform Meeting to discuss how this approach could benefit both biodiversity and farmers. More than 30 LIFE projects were represented at the event, with participants coming from at least 16 different European countries. 

‘Although there are challenges to overcome in delivering a results- based programme, it has numerous co-benefits for the farming community and society,’ Charlie McConalogue, the Irish Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, told the meeting in a video message. ‘These benefits provide economic support for farm families and rural communities and for the environmental stability so necessary for food production systems.’ To help make assessing results easier, the Irish government has produced a photo app called Agrisnap that uses geo-tagging to allow habitat scoring to be conducted in the field”, added McConalogue. 

Result-based payment schemes are outlined as one of the strategic interventions that EU Member States can use under the Common Agricultural Policy to encourage farmers to enhance the environment. The LIFE programme plays an important role in the development of such tools. 

'What I like the most about results-based payment schemes is the sense of pride we enable,' Humberto Delgado Rosa, Director for Biodiversity at the European Commission's Directorate General for Environment, told the meeting. ‘The farmers’ love for nature is recognised.’ 

Implementation of RBAPS varies greatly from country to country. While some have little experience, Ireland, for example, has been running RBAPS for more than 20 years, scaling them up to national and landscape levels while also integrating them into the country’s- CAP strategic plan.  

But ‘RBAPS don’t work in isolation but within a broader policy framework’ James Moran, a lecturer in ecology at Galway Mayo Institute of Technology in Ireland, told the meeting. He said that while the CAP could help to fund efforts to scale up RBAPS schemes, it is expensive and requires a combination of public and private finance. 

The Wild Atlantic Nature LIFE project explained how it helped 823 farmers receive €3 million of direct payments in 2021/2022 for actions to restore peatland in Ireland. Upscaling this approach will see 20 000 farmers across Ireland taking part in a results-based model. 

In Latvia, by comparison, the LIFE LatViaNature project has been setting up a pilot scheme to pay landowners who help to protect endangered grassland habitats in the country. The scheme received applications for four times as much land as it had capacity to include, so they were assessed to select the most potentially biologically valuable meadows and pastures. This resulted in 65 results-based payments contracts covering 678 hectares grasslands outside Natura 2000 areas,  ranging from 0.6 hectares to 30 hectares in size.  

Another project, LIFE Olivares Vivos, shared how results- based payments to olive farmers in Spain had increased wildlife richness by 7% and abundance by 18% over a 3-year period. The farmers did this by planting herbaceous cover and native woody species while also installing nest boxes, bee hotels and ponds on their land. ‘With farmers we always noticed openness and willingness to change,’ Carlos Ruiz, the Olivares Vivos project coordinator, told the meeting. ‘We are starting to export our scheme to other EU countries.’ 

The key messages and results of working groups at the 3-day meeting will now be compiled into a policy brief report, with the aim of feeding these into newly emerging CAP policies for 2028-2034.  

The LIFE Platform Meeting: Agriculture for the Benefit of Biodiversity hosted by LIFE Belgium for Biodiversity helps to support the implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy, the EU Biodiversity Strategy and the European Green Deal.