Permanent grasslands in Europe : Land use change and intensification decrease their multifunctionality

Acknowledgments We acknowledge the financial support of this work by European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, under grant agreement 774124, project SUPER-G (Developing Sustainable Permanent Grassland Systems and Policies).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

"Zorgen dat ...' Verbeteren van de concurrentiekracht van bedrijven in de open teelten

This report describes research on how entrepreneurs obtain a view on developments in their environment. The question looked at was how they acquire and use information for their strategic decision-making. The research covered four agricultural sectors - namely fruit, tree, bulb and vegetable production in the open air - and involved twenty-nine entrepreneurs

The aflatoxin situation in Africa : Systematic literature review

Contamination of African staple foods is a major issue for human and animal health, nutrition, and trade. This review aimed to collect and synthesize the available evidence on geographical spread, scale of contamination, disease burden, economic impact, and mitigation measures for aflatoxins in Africa by way of a systematic literature review. This knowledge can enhance management strategies for the major challenges to combat aflatoxins. The search was conducted by applying a predefined search strategy, using bibliographic databases and websites, covering the period 2010 to 2018. Results showed that maize, peanuts, and animal feeds were the most studied commodities. For maize, all studies indicated mean AFB1 to exceed the European Union legal limit. From studies on contamination levels and biomarkers, it is clear that overall exposure is high, leading to a substantial increase in long-term disease burden. In addition, concentrations in food occasionally can reach very high levels, causing acute aflatoxicoses. The trade-related impact of aflatoxin contamination was mainly evaluated from the standpoint of aflatoxin regulation affecting products imported from Africa. There was a limited number of studies on health-related economic impacts, pointing out a gap in peer-reviewed literature. A number of mitigation measures have been developed, but proof of cost-effectiveness or even costs alone of the practices is often lacking. We recommend more emphasis to be put in peer-reviewed studies on evidence-based cost-effective mitigation strategies for aflatoxins, on the scale and spread of the problem and its impacts on public health and economics for use in evidence-based policies

Bibliometric Analysis at Wageningen University & Research – comparison of three bibliometric systems

<div>The library of Wageningen University & Research (WUR) delivers bibliometric analysis for various evaluations throughout the institution. The current self-developed system is based on Web of Science and Essential Science Indicators Baselines [1]. During the last national evaluation critical comments on the current system have been made and lead to a project in which the WUR-system was compared to two commercial systems, namely InCites and SciVal. In the project we studied what the effect will be on the bibliometric indicators when shifting to one of the commercial systems. </div><div>In the project we analysed the publications of 14 chair groups and the research institutes – currently the main level for evaluation – with the three available systems. The WUR-system provides a Mean Normalised Citations Score and the share of top 10% and top 1% most cited publications. </div><div>Groups from the social sciences and groups in applied sciences (institutes) profit from a change from Web of Science as a citation database to Scopus resulting in better coverage of the scientific articles. For some groups Staff Publications results in higher Mean Normalized Citation Scores and for the other groups SciVal results in higher scores. Again groups from the social sciences and groups in applied sciences benefit from a change in system from Staff Publications to SciVal. Groups in more fundamental sciences score lower in systems with more differentiated categories like SciVal and InCites. This can be explained by the distribution of the publications over more and smaller categories with higher citation baselines compared to ESI-baselines.</div><div><br></div><div><b>References</b></div><div><br></div><div>[1] Van Veller, M.G.P., W. Gerritsma, P.L. van der Togt, C.D. Leon & C.M. van Zeist (2010). Bibliometric analyses on repository contents for the evaluation of research at Wageningen UR. In: A. Katsirikou and C.H. Skiadas eds. Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries: Theory and Applications. p.19-26. <a href="http://edepot.wur.nl/7266">http://edepot.wur.nl/7266</a>.</div><div><br></div

Permanent grasslands in Europe: Land use change and intensification decrease their multifunctionality

Permanent grasslands cover 34% of the European Union's agricultural area and are vital for a wide variety of ecosystem services essential for our society. Over recent decades, the permanent grassland area has declined and land use change continues to threaten its extent. Simultaneously, the management intensity of permanent grasslands increased. We performed a systematic literature review on the multifunctionality of permanent grasslands in Europe, examining the effects of land use and management on 19 grassland ecosystem service indicators. Based on the evidence in 696 out of 70,456 screened papers, published since 1980, we found that both land use change and intensification of management decreased multifunctionality. In particular, preventing conversion of permanent grasslands to croplands secured the delivery of multiple ecosystem services. A lower management intensity was associated with benefits for biodiversity, climate regulation and water purification, but impacted the provision of high-quality animal feed. Increasing the number of species in the sward enhanced multifunctionality of permanent grassland without significant trade-offs such as losses in production. Our review covered many aspects of land use, management and ecosystem services, but we also identified areas with no or only few studies. The most prominent gaps were related to comparisons between permanent and temporary grasslands, and effects of management practices on the provision of cultural values, and on erosion and flood control. We suggest that, despite apparent changes in human dietary preferences, the protection of permanent grasslands in Europe must be prioritised. At the same time, considering the need to reduce ruminant livestock's contribution to climate change, the time seems ripe to increase support for low-intensity grassland management to optimise the provision of essential ecosystem services from Europe's permanent grasslands

Delivery of ecosystem services from permanent grasslands in Europe: a systematic review

Permanent grasslands cover 34% of the European Union’s agricultural area and are vital for the delivery of essential ecosystem services. Over recent decades, permanent grasslands have suffered a significant decline and land use change continues to threaten their area. We performed a systematic review on the multifunctionality of permanent grasslands in Europe, examining the effects of land use change and management practices on 18 ecosystem service indicators. Based on the evidence in 696 out of 70,456 screened papers, we found that both land use change and intensification decreased multifunctionality. A lower management intensity was associated with benefits for biodiversity, climate regulation and water purification, but had a negative effect on the provision of high-quality animal feed. Increasing the number of species in the sward enhanced multifunctionality of permanent grassland without significant trade-offs such as losses in production. We suggest that a combined approach of protection and management extensification will help secure multiple benefits from permanent grasslands

Data from: Permanent grasslands in Europe: land use change and intensification decrease their multifunctionality

In an extensive systematic review of the literature on permanent grassland in Europe we show that reducing the management intensity of permanent grasslands and preventing the conversion of permanent grasslands to croplands secures the provision of multiple ecosystem services. The evidence is based on 696 out of 70,456 screened papers