Weniger Kraftfutter als Chance

Im folgenden Beitrag wollen wir auf das Thema der Kraftfutterreduktion in der österreichischen Milch- und Rindfleischproduktion eingehen und ausführen, weshalb diese Strategie umgesetzt werden sollte und wie sich diese auf den Treibhausgasausstoß und die Klimawirkung der Landwirtschaft für Österreich auswirkt

Do environmentally-friendly cocoa farms yield social and economic co-benefits?

Downstream companies in chocolate supply chains are increasingly engaged in improving the sustainability of cocoa production, which requires a multidimensional understanding of cocoa farms' sustainability performance. However, prior research has insufficiently addressed the multiple sustainability dimensions of cocoa production or the interrelationships between dimensions. This study explores farm sustainability using our comprehensive data set of 395 cocoa farms in Ecuador and Uganda and identifies social and economic co-benefits and trade-offs of environmentally-friendly cocoa production. For this, farms were grouped according to environmental performance and then compared. This approach revealed lowest sustainability performance in the social and governance dimension. We identified important social and economic co-benefits of environmentally-friendly cocoa production regarding human health benefits from reduced pesticide use and resource conservation for farms' long-term productivity, although at the expense of farm investments and profitability. Future interventions require approaches that target underrepresented sustainability issues and enable synergistic effects between environmental, social, and economic sustainability for cocoa farms

Volkswirtschaftlicher Nutzen der Bio-Landwirtschaft für Österreich

Das vorliegende Papier hat zum Ziel, den aktuellen Stand der wissenschaftlichen Literatur zum volkswirtschaftlichen Nutzen der Bio-Landwirtschaft durch gesellschaftliche Leistungen in Österreich zusammenzustellen. Dabei wurde versucht, soweit wie möglich auf österreichische Studien zurückzugreifen. Falls keine österreichischen Studien vorlagen, wurden internationale Studien herangezogen. Aufgrund dieser Fakten wurden sieben Schlussfolgerungen gezogen, die die derzeitige gesellschaftliche Diskussion um die Reform der österreichischen Agrarumweltpolitik versachlichen und ihr neue Impulse geben sollen. Die Kernthese des vorliegenden Papiers ist, dass die biologische Landwirtschaft mit vergleichsweise geringen gesellschaftlichen Kosten einen höheren gesellschaftlichen Nutzen erzielt als die konventionelle Wirtschaftsweise. Die Studie gibt Anregungen zu einer volkswirtschaftlich sinnvollen Förderung der im Hinblick auf die österreichischen Agrarumweltziele multifunktionellen biologischen Landwirtschaft. Wir kommen in unserer Analyse zu dem Schluss, dass gesellschaftlichen Leistungen und Kosten der Landwirtschaft nur unzureichend in der volkswirtschaftlichen Gesamtrechnung wiedergegeben sind. Selbst bei einer konservativen Schätzung und unter Nichtberücksichtigung vieler Arten von externen Kosten der österreichischen Landwirtschaft belaufen sich diese auf 1,3 Milliarden Euro pro Jahr. Gemäß der wissenschaftlichen Literatur kann eindeutig von geringeren negativen Umweltwirkungen der biologischen Landwirtschaft ausgegangen werden. Wir schätzen die potentielle Reduktion auf mindestens ein Drittel der Gesamtkosten. Aufgrund der Wirkungen der biologischen Landwirtschaft auf verschiedene österreichische Agrarumweltziele ist davon auszugehen, dass die derzeitige Förderung der biologischen Landwirtschaft im Agrar-Umweltprogramm ÖPUL zu Kostensenkungen führt – dies im Vergleich zu einem Maßnahmenmix ohne Förderung der biologischen Landwirtschaft. Um zukünftig die Internalisierung von externen Effekten weiter voranzutreiben und das aufgezeigte Potential der biologischen Landwirtschaft zur volkswirtschaftlichen Kosteneinsparung voll nutzen zu können, schlagen wir insgesamt sechs Maßnahmen, innerhalb und außerhalb des ÖPUL-Programmes vor: i) Vollständige Abgeltung von Kosten und eine Entkoppelung der Marktkomponente und Agrarumweltkomponente der biologischen Landwirtschaft, ii) Sicherstellen, dass die betriebswirtschaftlichen Anreize von Kombinationen von Einzelmaßnahmen, die in der Bio-Landwirtschaft bereits enthalten sind, die Förderung der Bio-Landwirtschaft nicht übersteigen, iii) Einführung von weiteren bzw. Weiterführung von existierenden mit der biologischen Landwirtschaft kombinierbaren ÖPUL-Maßnahmen, iv) Implementierung projektbezogener Instrumente zur Förderung der ländlichen Entwicklung durch die landwirtschaftliche Produktion, v) Einführung einer Stickstoff-, Energie- und Pestizidsteuer und vi) Langfristiges politisches Bekenntnis zur Unterstützung der biologischen Landwirtschaft. Wir sehen Potential zur Weiterentwicklung der biologischen Landwirtschaft zu einem nachhaltigen, auf Kreislaufwirtschaft basierenden landwirtschaftlichen Produktionssystem für Österreich. Um dieses Potential auszuschöpfen, sollten vom Staat Rahmenbedingungen ge-schaffen werden, um ein transdisziplinäres Wissenssystem zu etablieren, welches die Innovationskraft sowohl aus der Bauernschaft, der Beratung und der Forschung anerkennt

Nature’s contributions to people in the context of a changing traditional rice cultivation landscape in the Upper Baram, Malaysia

Traditional rice agroecosystems face socioeconomic, political, technical and environmental challenges that are resulting in changes in the traditional land use and management system and its contributions to indigenous farmers. This study explored the contributions made by swidden and wet rice agroecosystems in a traditional rice cultivation landscape and how this landscape has been influenced by recent changes in land use and management. Data were gathered from two villages in the Upper Baram, Malaysia, using semi-structured interviews with 43 farmers, and examined by qualitative content analysis. Farmers perceived different benefits from the rice agroecosystems over and above rice, such as non-rice food supply, habitat creation and support of their identity. The wet rice agroecosystem benefits farmers through higher rice yields, while the swidden rice agroecosystem provides a greater diversity of material contributions. Recent trends in land use and management towards the wet rice agroecosystem and plantations, driven by farmer preferences, land use policies and socioeconomic factors, are challenging the contributions available to farmers from the traditional rice cultivation landscape. Actors involved in decision-making in the traditional rice cultivation landscape should therefore consider the impact of land use and management changes on the diversity of contributions provided by rice agroecosystems

Indigenous farmers’ perceptions of problems in the rice field agroecosystems in the upper Baram, Malaysia

Background: Rice field agroecosystems produce food for more than half of the world’s population and deliver important services supporting farmers’ livelihoods. However, traditional rice field agroecosystems are facing a variety of problems, including pests or markets that are hard to access. This research explored indigenous farmers’ perceptions of the problems, their causes and consequences, and the solutions applied to address them in the rice field agroecosystem. Furthermore, the study investigated how indigenous farmers related these problems to the surrounding landscape elements and to microzones in the fields

Milch und Fleisch regenerativ erzeugen

Die Schweiz importierte 2015 1,16 Millionen und Österreich 650 000 Tonnen an Kraftfutter (EZV, 2017; Statistik Austria, 2017). Zudem nahm der Einsatz von Silomais und Ackerkulturen in der Rinderhaltung deutlich zu. Einhergehend mit dieser „Entkoppelung“ von Kreisläufen kommt es zu hohen Bilanzüberschüssen bei Stickstoff (N) in der Schweiz von 88,7 und in Österreich von 47,1 Kilogramm N pro Hektar Landwirtschaftsfläche exklusive Sömmerungsflächen (Stolze et al., 2019). Dies geht einher mit Nitrateinträgen ins Grundwasser und mit der Überschreitung von kritischen Belastungen für N-Einträge in empfindliche Ökosysteme mit entsprechenden negativen Umweltwirkungen (z. B. Rihm und Achermann, 2016; Dirnböck und Peterseil, 2014). Die Reduktion des N-Eintrags, sowohl über Futter- wie über Düngemittel, ist daher der Schlüssel zu einer ökologisch nachhaltigen Landwirtschaft

Opportunities for farming in alpine countries – pathways to truly grassland-based beef and milk production in Austria and Switzerland

Farming in the alpine countries of Austria and Switzerland fulfils important economic, socio-cultural and ecological functions for society. At the same time, it is responsible for important environmental impacts, whereas nitrogen balance surpluses and related impacts play a central role. It is crucial to reduce nitrogen inputs and site-adapted production and closing material cycles are core elements of ecologically sustainable land use. The study analysed the effects of adapted beef and dairy systems on the environmental impact and the food production with the help of the SOL mass-flow model. This includes higher reliance on grassland-based feed by abandoning the use of concentrate feed and forage maize, locally adapted reduction of livestock numbers, increased use of nitrogen-fixing legumes, reduction in mineral nitrogen fertilization, site-specific plant production and increase in nitrogen efficiency in both animal husbandry and crop production. The implementation of such a grassland-based beef and milk production results in lower ammonia emissions, reduction of nitrogen balance surpluses and lower total greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. These environmental improvements exceed the effects of the agricultural policy since the 1990s, even though the latter has increasingly focussed on environmental impacts. Moreover, the reduction in concentrate feed and forage maize releases arable land for alternative use. This allows for increased plant-based food production and therefore minimizes the competition between food and feed production. Other options for the use of the released land are less intensive farm operations, ecological compensation areas and/or nature conservation. Finally, the reduction in animal-based food production could be offset by changed dietary patterns and the increase of plant-based food production. The suggested transformation from a production focussed to an ecologically-oriented land use and food system requires a political framework and market conditions which cannot be implemented quickly but need awareness raising and fundamental societal change

Using the Sustainability Monitoring and Assessment Routine (SMART) for the Systematic Analysis of Trade-Offs and Synergies between Sustainability Dimensions and Themes at Farm Level

When trying to optimize the sustainability performance of farms and farming systems, a consideration of trade-offs and synergies between different themes and dimensions is required. The aim of this paper is to perform a systematic analysis of trade-offs and synergies across all dimensions and themes. To achieve this aim we used the Sustainability Monitoring and Assessment Routine (SMART)-Farm Tool which operationalizes the Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture Systems (SAFA) Guidelines by defining science-based indicator sets and assessment procedures. It identifies the degree of goal achievement with respect to the 58 themes defined in the SAFA Guidelines using an impact matrix that defines 327 indicators and 1769 relations between sustainability themes and indicators. We illustrate how the SMART-Farm Tool can be successfully applied to assess the sustainability performance of farms of different types and in different geographic regions. Our analysis revealed important synergies between themes within a sustainability dimension and across dimensions. We found major trade-offs within the environmental dimension and between the environmental and economic dimension. The trade-offs within the environmental dimension were even larger than the trade-offs with other dimensions. The study also underlines the importance of the governance dimension with regard to achieving a good level of performance in the other dimensions

Impacts of Scaling up Agroecology on the Sustainability of European Agriculture in 2050

The European Commission recently embraced the concept of agroecology as a pathway to reduce negative impacts from agri-food systems on the environment. So far, it remains unclear whether agroecology can deliver on these high hopes if implemented on a large scale. We here assess socio-economic and environmental implications of multiple agroecological futures in the European Union in 2050, based on a novel diagnostic scenario approach, i.e. the biomass balancing model BioBaM-GHG 2.0. We find that agroecological measures from the plot to the food systems level can indeed reduce environmental pressures while maintaining domestic food availability within the EU. Such measures are, for example, more hedgerows on croplands or reduced biomass harvest on high natural value – HNV grasslands. However, a key prerequisite is an overall reduction of the food system's size (based on the reduction of animal production, food wastes, and export production) and an optimised crop-livestock integration. Only then does the transformation towards an agroecological agri-food system in the EU not risk overstretching domestic land availability or produce insufficient agricultural commodities. Mitigating the accompanied trade-off of reduced farm income is a central mandate for policy development aimed at re-designing agriculture in Europe to align with the Green Deal goals

Impacts of Scaling up Agroecology on the Sustainability of European Agriculture in 2050

The European Commission recently embraced the concept of agroecology as a pathway to reduce negative impacts from agri-food systems on the environment. So far, it remains unclear whether agroecology can deliver on these high hopes if implemented on a large scale. We here assess socio-economic and environmental implications of multiple agroecological futures in the European Union in 2050, based on a novel diagnostic scenario approach, i.e. the biomass balancing model BioBaM-GHG 2.0. We find that agroecological measures from the plot to the food systems level can indeed reduce environmental pressures while maintaining domestic food availability within the EU. Such measures are, for example, more hedgerows on croplands or reduced biomass harvest on high natural value – HNV grasslands. However, a key prerequisite is an overall reduction of the food system's size (based on the reduction of animal production, food wastes, and export production) and an optimised crop-livestock integration. Only then does the transformation towards an agroecological agri-food system in the EU not risk overstretching domestic land availability or produce insufficient agricultural commodities. Mitigating the accompanied trade-off of reduced farm income is a central mandate for policy development aimed at re-designing agriculture in Europe to align with the Green Deal goals