Citizen perceptions and values associated with ecosystem services from European grassland landscapes

European permanent grasslands are multifunctional landscapes that deliver an important mix of ecosystem services. The effectiveness of future policies linked to landscape and agricultural practices requires consideration of citizen perceptions of, and priorities for, benefits (e.g. ecosystem services) demanded from permanent grasslands. This exploratory research aimed to expand understanding of citizens' perceptions and socio-cultural valuation of grassland landscapes, ecosystem service provision and management across Europe in order to inform future research. Fifteen focus groups with residents of rural areas, urban areas, and young adults from rural areas (aged 18-26) (N = 104), were conducted across five European countries (Spain, Sweden, UK, Switzerland and the Czech Republic) between 2020 and 2021. Overall, participants perceived grassland landscapes positively, describing connection to the landscape through experience, emotions, environmental characteristics, activity, access, and cultural identity. Prioritisation of ecosystem services from grassland varied between countries, influenced by grassland system diversity, and complex socio-cultural and socio-economic differences. Rural dwellers, including rural youth, perceived more benefits from grasslands than urban dwellers. Perceptions of problems were related to reduction, degradation and abandonment of grassland, and varied between urban and rural dwellers. Consumer education about the value of grasslands was perceived as vital in ensuring sustainable management and use of these landscapes. Citizens across different countries shared farming ideals relating to farming for biodiversity. These findings can help ensure that policies surrounding landscape and agricultural practices align with societal perspectives and priorities to effectively deliver multifunctional, valued, sustainable grassland systems

Wege in die Ernährungszukunft der Schweiz - Leitfaden zu den grössten Hebeln und politischen Pfaden für ein nachhaltiges Ernährungssystem

Aus wissenschaftlicher Sicht ist klar: Unser Ernährungssystem ist nicht nachhaltig. Um unsere Lebens- und Wirtschaftsgrundlagen zu erhalten, braucht es eine Neuausrichtung über die gesamte Wertschöpfungskette. Diese ist gleichzeitig ein Schlüssel zur Erreichung der Agenda 2030 für nachhaltige Entwicklung. SDSN Schweiz hat das wissenschaftliche Gremium Ernährungszukunft Schweiz initiiert, um einen Wegweiser zu entwickeln. Er soll es der Schweiz erlauben, Chancen rechtzeitig anzupacken und unkontrollierbare Kostenfolgen zu vermeiden. Das wissenschaftliche Gremium hat international wegweisende Pionierarbeit geleistet. In einem interdisziplinären wissenschaftlichen Prozess wurde zum ersten Mal für ein Land ein umfassender Handlungspfad zur Neuausrichtung des Ernährungssystems im Einklang mit den Zielen für nachhaltige Entwicklung ausgearbeitet. Die beteiligten Forschenden schaffen damit eine wichtige Grundlage für die weitere politische Diskussion in der Schweiz und international

Pathways to Advance Agroecology for a Successful Transformation to Sustainable Food Systems

Agroecology is a powerful strategy that reduces the trade-offs between productivity and sustainability. It promotes the diversity of crops and livestock, fields, farms and landscapes, which together are key to improving the sustainability of food and farming systems in terms of long-term productivity, food actors’ empowerment and inclusion and environmental health. Agroecology is a bundle of measures taken by farmers that, individually or combined, mobilize biodiversity and ecosystem services for productivity. Ideally, it leads to economically and ecologically resilient production systems that are high-yielding. It does not necessarily mean a predefined farming system, and the shift from simplified by industrial standards to agroecological farms is gradual. The transformation and upscaling of agroecological practices requires changes that affect not only the management of farms, or production and consumption patterns at the food system level, but also the institutional framework conditions and the way in which we measure the performance of agricultural and food systems. In our chapter, we describe four domains of transformation - knowledge systems, markets, collaborations and policy coherence - each with enabling and constraining factors

Model Tropical Legume Trees for Reversing Soil Degradation as a Solution for Increasing Rural Farmers Income by GIS Analysis: A Case Study - Meegahakivul, Sri Lanka

Poverty in rural areas of developing countries is one of the major global issues. Economic growth in rural areas of Sri Lanka has been significantly lower than in the urban areas, especially around Colombo and principally excluded the agricultural sector. Aconsiderable proportion of rural livelihoods still depend mainly on agriculture, facing soil degradation and erosion. An important contribution towards a sustainable development of rural areas in Sri Lanka is thus to improve soil quality to enable sustainable agricultural development. Meegahakivula is one of such area has been selected to investigate and is highly undulated. The area is investigated in an interdisciplinary approach by three partners such as agronomy, socioeconomic and Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS). The incorporation of Gliricidia sepium leaves as green manure is believed to improve soil quality by rising both soil nitrogen and organic matter content. The by-products of the trees contribute to an improved income. The socioeconomic component deals with the potential enhancement of income and its importance within the farming systems. Incorporation of Gliricidia sepium in lands with different slopes categories will be analyzed by use of image processing in photogrammetric techniques including the integration of spatial data with agronomic and socioeconomic data in GIS.ISSN:1682-1750ISSN:2194-9034ISSN:1682-177

Citizen perceptions and values associated with ecosystem services from European grassland landscapes

European permanent grasslands are multifunctional landscapes that deliver an important mix of ecosystem services. The effectiveness of future policies linked to landscape and agricultural practices requires consideration of citizen perceptions of, and priorities for, benefits (e.g. ecosystem services) demanded from permanent grasslands. This exploratory research aimed to expand understanding of citizens’ perceptions and socio-cultural valuation of grassland landscapes, ecosystem service provision and management across Europe in order to inform future research. Fifteen focus groups with residents of rural areas, urban areas, and young adults from rural areas (aged 18–26) (N = 104), were conducted across five European countries (Spain, Sweden, UK, Switzerland and the Czech Republic) between 2020 and 2021. Overall, participants perceived grassland landscapes positively, describing connection to the landscape through experience, emotions, environmental characteristics, activity, access, and cultural identity. Prioritisation of ecosystem services from grassland varied between countries, influenced by grassland system diversity, and complex socio-cultural and socio-economic differences. Rural dwellers, including rural youth, perceived more benefits from grasslands than urban dwellers. Perceptions of problems were related to reduction, degradation and abandonment of grassland, and varied between urban and rural dwellers. Consumer education about the value of grasslands was perceived as vital in ensuring sustainable management and use of these landscapes. Citizens across different countries shared farming ideals relating to farming for biodiversity. These findings can help ensure that policies surrounding landscape and agricultural practices align with societal perspectives and priorities to effectively deliver multifunctional, valued, sustainable grassland systems.ISSN:0264-8377ISSN:1873-575

Nutrition in City Ecosystems (NICE): protocol of a multi-sectoral development project to improve food and nutrition security of secondary city populations in Bangladesh, Kenya and Rwanda

BACKGROUND: Secondary cities tend to be better linked with local food systems than primate cities, acting as important platforms to trade agricultural produce with rural surrounding. COVID-19, conflicts and climate change continue to expose inefficiencies in food systems and have further exacerbated malnutrition, calling for substantial food systems transformations. However, tackling current food systems' challenges requires new approaches to ensure food and nutrition security. Nutritious and agroecologically produced food offer the potential to transform food systems by improving diets and alleviating pressure on the environment, as well as by creating jobs and reducing poverty. This paper describes the design of a project by a Swiss public-private consortium to improve food and nutrition security and to reduce poverty in city ecosystems in six secondary cities in Bangladesh, Kenya and Rwanda through governance/policy and supply and demand side interventions. METHODS: The Nutrition in City Ecosystems (NICE) project promotes well-balanced nutrition for city populations through interdisciplinary agricultural, food, and health sector collaborations along city-specific value chains. Adopting a transdiciplinary systems approach, the main interventions of NICE are (i) advocacy and policy dialogue, (ii) building of decentralized institutional capacity in multi-sectoral collaborations, (iii) support of data-driven planning, coordination and resource mobilization, (iv) anchoring of innovations and new approaches in city-level partnerships, (v) capacity building in the agricultural, retail, health and education sectors, as well as (vi) evidence generation from putting policies into practice at the local level. NICE is coordinated by in-country partners and local offices of the Swiss public-private consortium partners. DISCUSSION: The NICE project seeks to contribute to urban food system resilience and enhanced sustainable nutrition for city populations by (A) strengthening urban governance structures involving key stakeholders including women and youth, (B) generating income for producers along the supply chain, (C) triggering change in producers' and consumers' behavior such that nutritious and agroecologically produced foods are both in demand as well as available and affordable in urban markets, and (D) allowing a scale up of successful approaches to other national and international cities and city networks