Bommarco, Riccardo
- Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
There is worldwide concern about the environmental costs of conventional intensification of agriculture. Growing evidence suggests that ecological intensification of mainstream farming can safeguard food production, with accompanying environmental benefits; however, the approach is rarely adopted by farmers. Our review of the evidence for replacing external inputs with ecosystem services shows that scientists tend to focus on processes (e.g., pollination) rather than outcomes (e.g., profits), and express benefits at spatio-temporal scales that are not always relevant to farmers. This results in mismatches in perceived benefits of ecological intensification between scientists and farmers, which hinders its uptake. We provide recommendations for overcoming these mismatches and highlight important additional factors driving uptake of nature based management practices, such as social acceptability of farming.
Published in
Trends in ecology & evolution
2019, volume: 34, number: 2, pages: 154-166
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON
SLU Authors
Global goals (SDG)
SDG2 Zero hunger
SDG12 Responsible consumption and production
UKÄ Subject classification
Agricultural Science
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2018.11.002
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/98437