Ecological cross compliance promotes farmland biodiversity in Switzerland

In ecological cross compliance, farmers have to meet environmental standards in order to qualify for arearelateddirect payments. Because this is a strong financial incentive, cross compliance is a potentially powerfulpolicy instrument. We monitored the effectiveness of cross compliance in promoting biodiversity ongrassland and on arable land in Switzerland over 8 years. We observed measurable benefits for flora, butterflies,ground beetles, and spiders, in terms of species numbers and/or community composition. However,populations of threatened species showed no signs of benefit. While cross compliance has been in force inSwitzerland for almost a decade, it has only recently been introduced in the neighboring European Union.We argue that – provided the environmental standards relating to biodiversity are increased in the future –common farmland biodiversity could be enhanced at the continental scale under cross compliance. TheSwiss example shows that appropriate cross-compliance standards benefit farmland biodiversity at field andfarm scales, while the conservation of threatened species needs to be addressed by specific programs, actingat the scale of agricultural landscapes