Project title: Farmer-focused Biodiversity and Agricultural Knowledge Network
STUDIA Schlierbach is part of a Europe-wide project on biodiversity in agriculture.
January 2025 sees the launch of the Farmer-focussed Biodiversity and agricultural knowledge Network (FarmBioNet) Project. The project, led by Teagasc, the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority, is funded by the European Union under the €93.5 billion Horizon Europe programme for research and innovation.
FarmBioNet aims to identify biodiversity-friendly farming practices and help farmers to provide habitats that will offer food, safety and shelter for biodiversity on their farms. It will establish Farming and Biodiversity National Networks, consisting of farmers, foresters, researchers, NGOs, advisors, and other relevant Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) actors.
FarmBioNet will use these national networks to gather and disseminate knowledge and information. The networks will use biodiversity-friendly case-study areas to promote exchange of traditional and evidence-based actions that benefit farm biodiversity, through a co-creation and cross-fertilisation process.
The project will conduct a cost-benefit analysis, showing how biodiversity can benefit sustainable food production. It will also develop practical decision-making tools to promote biodiversity with farmers, foresters and policy makers.
The three-year FarmBioNet project will enable all farmers to understand how biodiversity-friendly their farm is, and what simple, low-cost actions they can take to work towards improving their whole farm for biodiversity without negatively impacting on productivity.
“Every farm has scope to significantly improve biodiversity before it starts to cost anything. Farmers and scientists working together can identify where this slack lies and target measures to take advantage of it. It’s such an easy win,” said, Andrew Bergin, Farming for Nature Ambassador and Executive Committee member.
Project Coordinator and Research Officer in Teagasc, Dr Saorla Kavanagh commented: “This project will use a multi-actor approach to come up with solutions to protect biodiversity. I believe that by working together we can generate practical and measurable actions that will help our biodiversity and farmers. In taking action to protect biodiversity, we start a chain reaction that has positive benefits for the general health of the environment, as well as our own wellbeing and that of future generations.”
STUDIA’s activities in this project are
- Quantitative survey of farmers and agricultural advisors to identify knowledge gaps and specific needs for biodiversity-friendly agriculture
- Collection and dissemination of biodiversity-friendly agriculture on Austrian farms and networking of these farms across Europe
- Cost-benefit analysis of biodiversity-friendly measures on farms
Project lead: Teagasc, Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority
Project duration: 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2027
Project website: farmbionet.eu
This project receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Framework Programme under project No. 101082102.
