Farm2Forest

This project will evaluate how future agricultural policy will affect marginal farming regions in Sweden. It will link scenarios, economic and ecological modelling of biodiversity and ecosystem services to build possible land-use and landscape changes in the future under a changed CAP reform.

Rationale

Farming in marginal areas with its resulting mosaic of forests, afforestation, and heterogeneous farmland maintains biodiversity and ecosystem services in Europe. Such areas are though dependent on support from Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payments. We do not know how the CAP reforms will change these landscapes or the viability of the farms. This is worrying because marginal regions with low agricultural productivity are often characterized by a mosaic of forests and farmland fostering high biodiversity and hot-spots for cultural ecosystem services.

Therefore, this project will investigate how the European CAP reforms can change these mixed farmland landscapes and how it will effect biodiversity and ecosystem functions, including cultural services.

Project base

This project started in 2018 and will continue until 2022. It is headed by Yann Clough and include researchers from different disciplines and stakeholders from the forest and agricultural sectors.

Read more on the project homepage, Farm2Forest.

Funding

The Project is funded by FORMAS and Craford with support from BECC.