Demonstration Projects
Demonstration projects
DP13: Improved management by increasing synergies between farming activities and ecosystem services provided by agroecosystems to foster biodiversity-based agricultural practices
To increase the expertise for supporting local farms in the “ecological transition” - through the identification of best approaches to preserve biodiversity and to allow income to increase.
More sustainable and fair farming including: i) reduced input dependence and production costs; ii) increased farmer's income; iii) increased landscape quality at farm level; iv) increased soil and freshwater quality; v) increased agroecosystems ecosystem services provision; vi) increased synergies between agroecosystems and natural ecosystems; vii) increased resilience of farms to climate change impacts.
DP13 will engage a wide range of stakeholders in order to increase synergies between farming activities and ecosystem services provided by agroecosystems and to increase the expertise for supporting local farms. The farmer association Coldiretti, which is the main business partner in DP13, will be actively involved in the definition of support activities for farmers for the diffusion of practices promoting biodiversity-based agriculture and their environmental and economic sustainability. Also, Coldiretti will provide support for the involvement of farmers in the proposed activities and, together with public authorities, in the definition of policies based on project results. It will also allow to increase project impacts, by favouring diffusion and replication at a national level.
Other stakeholders involved along with their role are:
Regional authorities from Piedmont and other Italian Regions will be engaged with the goal of sharing results to support policies and measures of Regional Rural Development Plans.
Food District organisations that are operating at inter-municipal level in order to promote food production, landscape and cultural heritage will be involved to allow the incorporation of contributions from SELINA in the strategies of the organisations.
Local administrators and municipal servants will be involved in order to share the legal framework at the application level (i.e. PES), in order to allow the implementation of the solutions defined by SELINA.
Farmers from the pilot case will be actively contributing to the definition of practices aimed at increasing synergies between ES management scenarios at farm level.
Suppliers will be involved in order to assess solutions feasibility at the production chain level, and to define the eventual impacts on the actual market configuration and the eventual changes needed to create a supply chain that allows a rapid introduction of devised innovation to promote biodiversity-based agriculture goals.
Consumers will be informed on activities goals and obtained results in order to increase awareness of the effects of food production on ecosystems and the benefits of biodiversity-based agriculture on the environment and the society and to promote different consumption models.
