Drivers of production performance and profitability of the livestock sector in the less favoured areas of England: the impact of distance, financial dependency and machinery

Agricultural production in Less Favoured Areas (LFAs) is more difficult since farming faces certain natural challenges. Such barriers may lead to a reduction or suspension of agricultural activities resulting in a series of environmental pressures such as loss of biodiversity and land abandonment. Thus, maintenance and sustainable development of the agricultural systems within the LFAs emerges as a prerequisite for preserving the environment of the English uplands. Towards this direction, the identification of factors that enhance or hinder agricultural performance in the LFAs is required to enable the design of future development strategies and policy interventions. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is employed here to group into core underlying factors variables related to climate and landscape characteristics as well as management choices. Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) was then used to test the explanatory power of the independent variables in explaining variations in business performance. Financial and physical data used in the study were derived from the Farm Business Survey dataset whereas climate variables were obtained from the Met Office climate monitoring. The results provide evidence to support that remoteness, climate, financial aid and technological level are drivers of good performance of the grazing livestock systems. Hence, the results suggest areas of policymaking interventions in the livestock sector of the LFAs that aim towards sustainable intensification of production

Waste cooking oil as an energy resource: review of Chinese policies

Converting waste cooking oil into biofuel represents a three-win solution, dealing simultaneously with food security, pollution, and energy security. In this paper, we encode the policy documents of waste cooking oil refining biofuel in China based on content analysis, and explore the related policies from the two dimensions as basic policy tools and enterprises supply chain. Research indicates the weak institution coordination of policy issuing entities. Also, the findings show that tools of regulatory control and goal planning are overused. Policies of government procurement, outsourcing and biofuel consumption are relatively scarce. Generally, government focuses more on formulating policies from the strategic, administrative and regulatory aspects, while less on market-oriented initiatives as funding input and financial support

Options for enhancing the biodiversity value of intensive livestock farms: experience from the English agri-environment schemes

Permanent grassland makes up a greater proportion of the agricultural area in the UK and Ireland than in any other EU country, representing 60% and 72% of UAA respectively (Eurostat 2007). Of the permanent grassland in the UK, approximately half (about 6 million hectares) comprises improved grassland on moist or free-draining neutral soils typical of lowland livestock farms. These swards tend to have low plant species richness and are typically dominated by perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne). The aim of this paper is to review the ways in which biodiversity of such farmland can be enhanced, focussing on the evidence behind management options in English agri-environment schemes (AES) at a range of scales and utilising a range of mechanisms

The benefits of hedgerows for pollinators and natural enemies depends on hedge quality and landscape context

Ecological intensification advocates the harnessing of regulating and supporting ecosystem services to promote more sustainable food production, and this relies on effective management of non-cropped habitats. Hedgerows are an important component of the landscape in many farming systems across the world, management of which provides a potential mechanism to enhance ecological intensification. Here we investigate the value of hedgerows in Southern England as a source of functionally important taxa, and how hedgerow quality and local landscape composition impact on their potential contribution to sustainable agriculture in arable landscapes. We show that hedgerows are a source habitat for many natural enemies which spill over into neighbouring fields, and that hedgerows provide a valuable forage resource and corridor for movement of pollinators. Hedgerow quality affects these benefits and continuous unbroken hedgerows, with a high diversity of woody species, are more valuable for the provision of bumblebees and Linyphiid spiders, while the presence of trees within the hedgerow supports Lycosid spiders. Floral resources, beyond the woody hedgerow species themselves, are also a key forage resource for hoverflies. The impact of these hedgerows on invertebrate abundance is moderated by local landscape, and hedgerows are a more valuable forage resource for pollinators in more intensely managed landscapes. Our study shows that in order to support abundant and a broad range of natural enemies and pollinators in agricultural landscapes, both hedgerows and local semi-natural habitats need to be protected and managed. The benefit of hedgerows, as a habitat for functionally important taxa depends on hedgerow quality and management practices such as avoiding gaps, high hedge species diversity and maintaining an abundant understory of plants, can improve their value for ecological intensification

Measuring sustainable intensification: combining composite indicators and efficiency analysis to account for positive externalities in cereal production

We combine the use of a stochastic frontier analysis framework and composite indicators for farm provision of environmental goods to obtain a farm level composite indicator reflecting sustainable intensification. The novel sustainable intensification composite indicator that is developed accounts for multidimensional market and non-market outputs, namely the economic performance of cereal farms (i.e. market production value) and the associated positive environmental impacts of production (e.g. positive environmental externalities). The composite indicator integrates three different indicators for the provision of environmental goods into a stochastic frontier analysis: a) agri-environmental payments; b) the ratio of rough grassland and permanent pasture area to total utilised agricultural area; and c) land use diversity, as measured by the Shannon Index. We apply this approach to a panel of data for 106 cereal farms in England and Wales during the period 2010–2012. Results indicate that farm rankings on the indicator vary substantially depending on the weight given to the different environmental aspects/indicators, suggesting that single indicators of the provision of environmental goods may not provide a true reflection of the environmental performance of farms. We illustrate a simple approach that captures the aspects of sustainable intensification of farms in a much more holistic way, i.e. by producing a distribution of sustainable intensification scores for each farm reflecting different weightings of evaluation criteria. To reduce the dimensionality of this distribution farms are classified into four distinct groups according to the shape of this distribution, with some farms found to perform well under all combinations of weights for evaluation criteria, while others always perform poorly. This distribution-based analysis provides a greater depth of information than traditional approaches based on the generation of a single sustainable intensification score

Exploring attitudes to technology adoption for cross compliance in Greek and Lithuanian farmers

© The Authors.The fourth agricultural revolution has started with an explosion of online, smart, digital technologies that are now available to support farmers to improve their operations is enabling opportunities for direct integration between agricultural and computer-based systems. However, the wide range of devices and applications available can be overwhelming and the farming community is showing reluctance to adoption of these new technologies. As part of an EU-funded, multi-partner research project we developed, in collaboration with farmers and other stakeholders, a novel on-line system that supports EU farmers and paying agencies to reduce the administrative burden of CAP’s cross compliance record-keeping and inspections. During the co-development phase we interviewed Greek and Lithuanian farmers about their user needs in relation to the novel system and their potential adoption of this new technology. We analysed their qualitative responses and could identify two groups; ‘Optimistic’ and ‘Reluctant’ in relation to their use of novel technologies. In order to achieve up-take of new technologies within the European farming community, we considered these findings using the Theory of Planned Behaviour and concluded that focussing on the ease of adoption and peer usage would encourage the highest adoption rates as opposed to focusing on changing farmer attitudes

Optimising the spatial and production input features to improve efficiency of hill farms production systems

Integration of crop and livestock production systems (ICLS) represents a method for enhancing the sustainability of agricultural systems. Introducing more diversified farm production plans increases profitability and resilience by minimising the negative environmental impacts of agricultural production. Examining farm businesses located in Less Favoured Areas (LFAs) of England, we investigate how conversion into more integrated systems impacts on profitability. Thus, providing knowledge that can enable structural changes on the farm level towards enhancing financial performance and the sustainable intensification of the production system. Through Linear Programming (LP), four distinct optimisation scenarios are estimated, demonstrating the different dynamics between more specialised and more integrated-diversified (intensified) production systems. Data regarding physical and financial performances of 139 farm businesses were derived from the Farm Business Survey (FBS) for the accounting year of 2013-2014. Our findings suggest that there is a lot of potential for increasing profitability of hill farms through optimisation of ICLS. Policy interventions may accommodate productivity challenges within the LFAs via the construction of networks of transferrable knowledge to enable farmers gain knowledge on benefits emerging from ICLS. Hence, promote strategies and risk mitigation practices that could allow hill farmers to develop a sustainably intensified production system that is maximising the production capacity of the available natural resources

Obtaining more benefits from crop residues as soil amendments by application as chemically heterogeneous mixtures

Crop residues are valuable soil amendments in terms of the carbon and other nutrients they contain, but incorporation of residues does not always translate into increases in nutrient availability, soil organic matter (SOM), soil structure, and overall soil fertility. Studies have demonstrated accelerated decomposition rates of chemically heterogeneous litter mixtures, compared to the decomposition of individual litters, in forest and grassland systems. Mixing high C:N ratio with low C:N ratio amendments may result in greater carbon use efficiency and non-additive benefits in soil properties. We hypothesised that non-additive benefits would accrue from mixtures of low-quality (straw or woodchips) and high-quality (vegetable-waste compost) residues applied before lettuce planting in a full-factorial field experiment. Properties indicative of soil structure and nutrient cycling were used to assess benefits from residue mixtures, including soil respiration, aggregate stability, bulk density, SOM, available and potentially mineralisable N, available P, K and Mg, and crop yield. Soil organic matter and mineral nitrogen levels were significantly and non-additively greater in the straw-compost mixture compared to individual residues, which mitigated the N immobilisation occurring with straw-only applications. Addition of compost significantly increased soil available N, K and Mg levels. Together, these observations suggest that greater nutrient availability improved the ability of decomposer organisms to degrade straw in the straw-compost mixture. We demonstrate that mixtures of crop residues can influence soil properties non-additively. Thus, greater benefits may be achieved by removing, mixing, and re-applying crop residues, than by simply returning them to the soils in situ

Single introductions of soil biota and plants generate long-term legacies in soil and plant community assembly

Recent demonstrations of the role of plant-soil biota interactions have challenged the conventional view that vegetation changes are mainly driven by changing abiotic conditions. However, while this concept has been validated under natural conditions, our understanding of the long-term consequences of plant- soil interactions for above-belowground community assembly is restricted to mathematical and conceptual model projections. Here, we demonstrate experimentally that one-time additions of soil biota and plant seeds alter soil-borne nematode and plant community composition in semi-natural grassland for 20 years. Over time, aboveground and belowground community composition became increasingly correlated, suggesting an increasing connectedness of soil biota and plants. We conclude that the initial composition of not only plant communities, but also soil communities has a long-lasting impact on the trajectory of community assembly