Annette Piorr

Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research | ZALF

The paper discusses the increasing use of the term agroecology in scientific literature and how its meanings vary in different contexts. However, the key issue is not the different understandings of agroecology per se, but whether various interpretations align with its intrinsic systemic and transformative meaning. To address this, the paper presen...

Collaboration among local actors is considered an important precondition for a sustainable transformation of the regional agri-food system. To date, however, little is known about the social innovation capacity of local farmers when it comes to the establishment of alternative food networks. This is especially true for farmers’ collaborations with...

Agricultural intensification and landscape homogenisation are major drivers of biodiversity loss in European agricultural landscapes. Improvements require changes in farming practices, but empirical evidence on farmers’ motivations underlying their on-farm biodiversity management remains fragmented. To date, there is no aggregated overview of behav...

To capture complexity of agri-food systems, farmers need preparedness for future uncertainties accompanying the effects of today’s action. Translating Qualitative scenarios (QS) into quantitative modelling, though still challenging due to such complexity, can provide possible pictures of the future and pathways toward resilience. Here we use agent-...

The provision of public goods by agriculture and forestry has been a major topic of the agricultural policy debate in the EU. The objective of this paper is to investigate local stakeholder perceptions regarding the cause-effect relations between agriculture and forestry activities and a broad set of public goods and bads, and hence to contribute t...

As centres of consumption, knowledge and services under some political and administrative control, cities are acknowledged as strategic food governance transition nodes. Increasing stakeholder coordination and participation , however, means identifying pathways for transformative change and accelerating uptake of innovative and participatory modes...

Multifunctional and diversified agriculture can address diverging pressures and demands by simultaneously enhancing productivity, biodiversity, and the provision of ecosystem services. The use of digital technologies can support this by designing and managing resource-efficient and context-specific agricultural systems. We present the Digital Agric...

Inwieweit können sich Städte nachhaltig aus der Region ernähren? Frisch geerntet, kurz transportiert, nachvollziehbare Herkunft aus der Region, wo Arbeits- plätze gesichert, Landwirtschaft von lokalen Bauern und Bäuerinnen betrieben wird, und da- mit möglicherweise sogar vielfältigere Agrarlandschaften mit Erholungs- und/ oder Biodiver- sitätswer...

In this study, we assess the supply of five ecosystem services (ES, i.e. biodiversity provision, carbon sequestration, erosion control, water availability and yield) in an agricultural landscape in Northeast Germany as perceived by different stakeholders with a web-based questionnaire. We complement this participatory approach with a biophysical as...

Recent literature demonstrates the contribution of short food supply chains (SFSC) to regional economies and sustainable food systems, and acknowledges their role as drivers for sustainable development. Moreover, different types of SFSC have been supported by urban food policies (UFP) over the few last years and actors from the food chain became pa...

This document represents Deliverable 2.1 “Overview of regulatory and incentive instruments for biodiversity management on farms” within WP2 „Identifying incentives to promote biodiversity and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes“ of the EU Horizon 2020 project SHOWCASE. It reports the outcomes of WP2 Task 2.1 “Evaluating regulatory and inc...

Regulatory and incentive instruments for biodiversity management on farms (Short summary for practitioners)

Agricultural ecosystems are the source of important common pool resources providing multiple goods and services, thus playing a crucial role in sustaining human well-being. Yet, the competitive overuse as well as the misuse of this type of ecosystem largely persists. The presence of multiple beneficiaries of agriculture landscapes represents a dile...

In response to the negative effects caused by structures of the dominant agricultural system and new market opportunities, increasing food supply structures have re-emerged in the urban-rural context of industrialized countries in recent years. These food supply structures often accompany new forms of hybrid cooperation models, including actors and...

Background

Agricultural land use systems have been optimized for producing provisioning ecosystem services (ES) in the past few decades, often at the expense of regulating and cultural services. Research has focused mainly on the supply side of ES and related trade-offs, but the demand side for regulatory services remains largely neglected. The objective of t...

The resilience of the food supply system has become a vital issue for many countries especially under substantial international supply disturbances (e.g. the effects of COVID-19 restrictions). Regionalizing diets and increasing food self-sufficiency contribute greatly to shortening food supply chains and, therefore, to increasing the resilience of...

The food self-sufficiency assessment of Bristol and Vienna was developed by applying the Metropolitan Foodshed and Self-sufficiency scenario (MFSS) model [1] in the proposed respective foodsheds. In the case of Vienna 25 surrounding districts (i.e. Niederösterreich region) were selected, whereas for Bristol 5 districts surrounding the city were inc...

Agricultural ecosystems provide a wide range of biotic and abiotic services that are highly demanded by the society. A mismatch between demand and supply of ecosystem services (ESS) has triggered researchers to develop several social-ecological system models to help reduce the gap between them. We introduce an integrated conceptual modelling approa...

The regionalization of food systems in order to shorten supply chains and develop local agriculture to feed city regions presents particular challenges for food planning and policy. The existing foodshed approaches enable one to assess the theoretical capacity of the food self-sufficiency of a specific region, but they struggle to consider the dive...

The dataset of the ecosystem services provided by the agricultural areas of the Märkisch-Oderland District-Brandenburg, Germany, contains six standardised indicators of ecosystem service provision, and includes one provisioning service - i) biomass production (PRO), four regulating services - ii) water storage (WAS), iii) carbon stock total (CST),...

Appreciation for agricultural sustainability and ecosystem services (ESS) has received considerable attention from the scientific community. However, research has not yet systematically and sufficiently considered the spatial dimension of ESS trade-offs as a source of conflicts. Moreover, approaches for ESS management that address a wide range of b...

Background Qatar is one of the countries with the highest carbon (C) footprints per capita in the world with an increasing population and food demand. Furthermore, the international blockade by some countries that is affecting Qatar—which has been traditionally a highly-dependent country on food imports—since 2017 has led the authorities to take th...

Miscanthus × giganteus (hereafter Miscanthus) is a perennial crop characterized by its high biomass production, low nutrient requirements, its ability for soil restoration, and its cultivation potential on marginal land. The development of the bioenergy sector in the state of Brandenburg (Germany), with maize as the dominant crop, has recently draw...

Effective agri-environmental management of peatlands requires co-ordinated implementation action beyond that on a farm level due to the ecological functioning of the water system at the watershed level. We assess how farmers perceive different co-ordinating institutions and which farm and farmers’ characteristics determine differences in the percep...

Although food is an emerging topic on municipal policy and planning agendas, a systematic examination of policy development, its implementation and the instruments used at the urban level is lacking. This study was carried out with the aim of gaining new insights into the prevalence of certain food policy instruments and capacity of policy action....

The debate on urban resilience and metabolism has directed increasing attention to the ecological footprint of food consumption, self-sufficiency as a means of food security, and regionalisation of food systems for shortening supply chains. Recently, metropolitan regions have proposed food policies that aim to foster local food systems connected to...

Socioeconomic viability of urban agriculture (UA) is, especially regarding non-commercially oriented initiatives, at most a generically treated issue in scientific literature. Given a lack of data on yields, labor input, or saved expenditures, only a few studies have described it either from a cost-avoidance or a specific benefit generation perspec...

Community-supported agriculture (CSA), a model associated with the movement of Alternative Food Networks (AFN), is gaining increasing attention from citizens and in policy. Many studies have identified the economic benefits of CSA for farmers. Some of them explain the economic benefits by closer social ties and the reciprocal relationship between c...

The restoration and improvement of natural capital (NC) in rural areas represents one of the main objectives of the EU's rural development policy (RDP). In addition to creating environmental and biodiversity benefits, NC represents an important territorial asset and a basis to generate socioeconomic second-order effects for economic competitiveness...

The data presented in this DiB article offers a full overview on the scientific sustainable intensification literature from 1997 to 2016. It consists of articles retrieved from the Scopus and the Web of Science databases that feature “Sustainable Intensification” (SI) as search term in title, abstract or author keywords. Information on bibliography...

After two decades of research on sustainable intensification (SI), namely securing food production on less environmental cost, heterogeneous understandings and perspectives prevail in a broad and partly fragmented scientific literature. Structuring and consolidating contributions to provide practice-oriented guidelines are lacking. The objectives o...

This study presents a state of the art overview on urban agriculture and peri-urban agriculture (UPUA), the diversity of phenomena, motivations, distinctive features, benefits and limitations. UPUA is contextualized in relation to societal and economic transformations, EU strategic objectives, policies and regional food system approaches. Using bes...

Agricultural landscapes affect regional development and competitiveness in a way far beyond the production of agricultural commodities. However, comprehensive assessments of the relevant cause-effects between agricultural landscape and regional competitiveness are complex and they require a range of ecological, economic and social aspects to be con...

Since 2007, a range of new modeling approaches and tools have been developed for sustainability impact assessment (SIA), but a lack of universal acceptance of SIA tools in applied policy making is observed. The current article gives an overview of experiences from several European and international projects, critically reviews the selected SIA tool...

Natural amenities and the aesthetic value of agricultural landscapes are important territorial assets for improving rural tourism and the quality of the living environment. To identify which characteristics shape the visual quality of a landscape, a stated-preference survey was conducted (N = 200) using photorealistic landscape visualisations of fo...

The study analyzes and explains on-farm diversification in Emilia-Romagna, a productive and agriculturally intensified region in Italy. The purpose was to contribute to knowledge gaps on the adoption of different diversification strategies in relation to farming system. Based on farm-level census data gathered by the Italian National Institute of S...

In Germany, as in many other developed countries, alternative food networks (AFNs) are growing in number and relevance. Those networks include new models of production and distribution, such as food cooperatives (FoodCoops), self-harvest gardens or community-supported agriculture (CSA) schemes. AFNs represent an alternative to conventional food sup...

With increasing relevance of transdisciplinary research approaches and impact orientation of scientific achievements, research projects in agricultural landscape management frequently develop information and decision support tools (IS/DSS). An empirical overview on their applicability, user demands and capabilities, functionalities and stakeholder...

In the recent literature, Alternative Food Networks (AFN) are discussed as a promising approach, at the urban-rural interface, to meeting the challenges of the current agri-food system. Consumer-producer collaboration is seen as a characteristic feature in this context. What is lacking, however, are general concepts for describing the topics of con...

In Germany, more and more Alternative Food Networks are emerging, such as food coops, community-supported agriculture, and selfharvest gardens. Their goal is to provide a more sustainable supply of locally, ecologically or fairly produced foodstuffs. To achieve this goal, urban consumers and producers on the outskirts of the city cooperate directly...

Agri-environmental policies and planning influence agricultural landscape management, and thus the capacity to deliver landscape services and to contribute to rural viability. Numerous models and frameworks have been developed to improve comprehension of the mechanisms and interrelationships between policies, landscape and socio-economic values and...

Different forms of income diversification represent important strategies of farmers to either cope with the changing economic framework conditions or to valorise given territorial potentialities. Nevertheless, the decision to diversify economic activities on or off the farm will heavily depend on the agricultural business and household characterist...

Background The ecosystem services approach is increasingly used in scientific literature all over the world. Originally the concept was proposed for natural or semi-natural ecosystems. However, for some years the approach is also used in literature related to agriculture. While ecosystems under agricultural management provide important services, th...

Regional food systems and organic agriculture are both considered more sustainable than the conventional, globalized food system they provide an alternative to. The emergence and expansion of alternative forms of food supply are influenced by various factors on different scales. Using the food systems approach we aim to study potentials and limitat...

Urban agriculture, a dynamic multifunctional phenomenon, affects the spatial diversification of urban land use, its valorization and its governance. Literature acknowledges its contribution to the development of sustainable cities. The dimension and extent of this contribution depends significantly on the particular form and function of urban agric...

Due to field enlargements and removal of landscape elements, intensification of agricultural management is frequently related to the alteration of the landscape structure and composition of elements, resulting in a decreased ecological capability. This study presents a spatially explicit probabilistic approach to model and analyse the effect of lan...

This paper presents a methodology to map demand for cultural ecosystem services assessed via a visual choice experiment approach aimed to estimate the contributions of different landscape elements to the overall landscape preference in a case study region in North-East Germany. The levels of four landscape attributes, i.e. green linear elements, gr...

Given the search for new solutions to better prepare cities for the future, in recent years, urban agriculture (UA) has gained in relevance. Within the context of UA, innovative organizational and technical approaches are generated and tested. They can be understood as novelties that begin a potential innovation process. This empirical study is bas...

FOODMETRES has combined quantitative and qualitative methods and engaged with a variety of actors in metropolitan regions including food producers, civic food organisations, and government bodies. FOODMETRES defines metropolitan regions in the context of the land use impacts of cities on their surrounding areas. It hence considers phenomena such as...

Emerging new flexible forms of consumer- producer relationships and activities within the food sector are challenging the traditional models of consumption and ownership. As social innovations, their extension can be interpreted as forerunner of economic transition. Interaction takes place through flexibilisation of scope and levels of consumer int...

We present a methodology to map cultural ecosystem services based on a visual choice experiment. Mapping allowed identifying priority-areas for landscape management from an aesthetic perspective, and to set target-thresholds to enhance cultural services provision. An average increase in attractiveness of 40% was estimated following the increase of...

Within the debate about rural development policy (RDP), there has been increasing call for a stronger territorial focus emphasising the potentials, resources and demands of regions. Investments in territorial capital and regional capacity building have been considered as the two main cornerstones of a place-based approach to rural development (OECD...

The analysis and evaluation of European Rural Development Policy (RDP) is challenging because of its delivery at multiple scales by multiple actors. To address this challenge the Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (CMEF) indicators were introduced. However, these quantitative indicators are limited by data gaps and their inability to addres...

EU expenditures for Rural Development, having increased from 2.9% of the total Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget in the 1990s to 12.3% in the beginning of the 2010s, reflect the growing strategic and societal values attached to this policy in addressing the new global challenges for rural areas in the enlarged EU. The analysis of the recent a...

Food security is becoming an increasingly relevant topic in the Global North, especially in urban areas. Because such areas do not always have good access to nutritionally adequate food, the question of how to supply them is an urgent priority in order to maintain a healthy population. Urban and peri-urban agriculture, as sources of local fresh foo...

FOODMETRES aims to describe, analyse and facilitate the development of short food supply chain (SFSC) innovations in metropolitan regions, including their rural, urban and periurban areas. The research carried out in this project covers questions of food production, processing and logistics; its focus is sustainable and resource-efficient soluti...

Food chains considered to be sustainable are chains that produce food closer to the city, reduce the number of steps in the chain and use natural resources more efficiently. In the FOODMETRES project (see previous article), case studies were undertaken for six metropolitan regions – London, Rotterdam, Berlin, Milan, Ljubljana, and Nairobi – to show...