FRAMEwork: a system-wide approach to biodiversity sensitive farming in Europe

Abstract

FRAMEwork is a dynamic response to the global biodiversity crisis that, despite international recognition of the critical environmental threat, sees biodiversity loss continuing at an alarming rate.  In Europe, where agriculture accounts for c. 40% of land use, conserving farmland biodiversity is critical to countering the biodiversity crisis. At the same time, there is an urgent need to increase the efficiency and sustainability of agriculture to feed the growing global human population (a 60% increase in agricultural production is required by 2050). FRAMEwork's vision for biodiverse, sustainable, and efficient agroecosystems is delivered via a novel and comprehensive package - the FRAMEwork System for Biodiversity Sensitive Farming - comprising all the components necessary to generate and deliver an ecologically sound technically robust and socio-economically desirable solution to biodiversity sensitive farming for long term resilience in European agriculture. FRAMEwork's multi-actor, farmer-led and landscape scale approach to biodiversity management goes beyond the state-of-the-art in stakeholder co-innovation and will have a legacy beyond the project lifetime.  FRAMEwork will: champion the multi-actor approach with Advanced Farmer Clusters and their extensions to Cluster Working Groups as the primary instrument for the practical delivery of biodiversity sensitive farming; implement novel landscape ecological studies to inform farmland biodiversity management; develop innovative methods and tools for biodiversity management, monitoring and evaluation; influence policy development by designing incentives for biodiversity sensitive farming; devise a new system-wide evaluation of biodiversity sensitive farming; and influence EU agriculture long-term by constructing a Citizen Observatory and Information Hub adding to a legacy that will support everyone with an interest and stake in farming and biodiversity.