Monitoring and effective measures for agrobiodiversity

The EU biodiversity strategy 2030 underlines the role of farmers in preserving biodiversity while at the same time indicating that certain agricultural practices are a key driver for biodiversity decline.

According to the latest State of Nature Report (EEA, 2020), many terrestrial habitats are severely impacted by agriculture, especially grasslands and freshwater habitats, heath and scrub, and bogs, mires and fens playing important role in soil carbon sequestration. This is also the case for most of the species groups, including reptiles, molluscs, amphibians, arthropods, vascular plants and breeding birds.

Grasslands as one of the most species-rich habitats in Europe, are among the habitats with the highest share of assessments showing a bad conservation status (49 %), accompanied by deteriorating soil properties.

Farmland birds and insects, particularly pollinators, and soil microbiota are key indicators of the health of agroecosystems and are vital for agricultural production and food security. The biodiversity strategy aims to bring back at least 10% of agricultural area under high-diversity landscape features. These include, amongst others buffer strips, rotational or non-rotational fallow land, hedges, non-productive trees, terrace walls, and ponds. Such measures help enhance carbon sequestration, prevent soil erosion and depletion, filter air and water, and support climate adaptation.

The EU Birds and Habitats Directive aims at reaching favourable conservation status of wild birds as well as of those species and habitats covered in the annexes of the Habitats Directive. However, there are many data gaps to identify species’ requirements and to monitor population trends over time for those species dependent on agricultural habitats. This hampers the design of appropriate agro-ecological conservation measures and the proper implementation of the Directives. It is therefore necessary to monitor the diversity and area of habitats for farmland-dependent species, in space and time, in order to maintain and re-establish biotopes and habitats.

Projects should:

• Map carbon and nature rich areas and analyse the effects of agricultural practices on biodiversity;
• Monitor the diversity and area of habitats for farmland-dependent species, in space and time;
• Develop and test effective agri-environment measures as well as indicators and monitoring tools to determine the effectiveness of conservation measures for species and their habitats in the agricultural context;
• Develop and demonstrate practical examples of agro-forestry systems and how these can be promoted through rural development programmes.

Activities should be carried across a range of climatic/biogeographical regions in the EU and Associated Countries.

The project needs to take account of already existing European species action plans, such as the Turtle Dove action plan and the EU Wet Grassland Wader action plan. Furthermore, cooperation is expected with the Biodiversity Partnership and other relevant Horizon Europe missions and partnerships.

In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement.