Environmental impact of ecological agriculture at the territorial level

In the present deliverable, D4.3 of the LIFT project we provide insights on the environmental impact, which is termed here more precisely the agri-environmental impact (AEI), of ecological farm management practices using the ecosystem service concept at territorial level through a two-pronged approach. First, we present an indicator framework which uses one the one hand, evidence derived from an extensive systematic literature review quantifying the potential supply of 17 ecosystem services from 26 different (ecological) farm management practices, and on the other hand local, stakeholder-derived ecosystem service weights (which reflect relative ecosystem service demand) to obtain an overall AEI indicator for a given ecological farm management practice. The indicator framework is then applied to three case study regions across Belgium (Hageland-Haspengouw) and England (North Kent and the High Weald) to demonstrate the context-specific territorial-level AEI of ecological farm management practices. We demonstrate that at territorial level, though there is quite some variation in AEI of ecological farm management practices based on local contexts, semi-natural habitats, extensive livestock systems and cover crops have a high AEI across the three considered case study regions. Second we present results from a discrete choice experiment (DCE) in which we quantify preferences for the aesthetic value of integrating ecological farm management practices into an agricultural landscape in Flanders (Belgium), England and Hungary. From this DCE, we find that, similarly to the findings from the AEI indicators, ecological management practices which target increasing (bio)diversity and maintaining green corridors within a landscape, such as semi-natural habitats and cover crops, illicit strong positive preferences from the general public. Our findings illustrate that considering local context and demand is important when evaluating AEI of farm management practices based on ecosystem services