‘Nature inclusive’ agriculture requires a systemic transition of the agricultural sector

Abstract

European agriculture, and Dutch agriculture in particular, is at a crossroads. Due to rationalisation, including intensive use of fertilizers and pesticides, biodiversity in rural areas is declining at an unprecedented rate. Socioeconomic developments in the agricultural sector also show ‘a race to the bottom’. Farmers produce on world markets and are only able to compete on input costs. This results in lower income per unit crop or animal and leads to an ever increasing farm size. In turn this leads to a further decline of habitat of species bound to rural areas and farmland. To turn these negative trends around the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture has proposed an alternative form of farming, labelled ‘nature inclusive’ farming, that 1) benefits from the services that natural processes provide, 2) delivers agri-environmental practices to maintain agro-biodiversity and 3) strongly reduces its negative impacts on the environment. Currently this Ministry supports the adoption of nature inclusive farming practices by funding innovative experiments led by farmer initiatives. Despite some promising results, such innovations have large difficulties to be scaled up, largely due to counteracting forces of the current agricultural system. Using the Technological Innovation System (TIS) framework developed by Hekkert and Negro (2009), we argue that a systemic transition of current agricultural practices is required to mainstream ‘nature inclusive’ farming. Such a transition can only be realised when a shared vision on the future agricultural sector is developed, set out by the government and societal parties. Such a shared vision can then lead to new enabling (policy) environments/landscapes in which these innovations can rise. Without such shared vision, innovations will be locked-in into the current agricultural system, to the extent of a very low prospect of nature inclusive innovations. Furthermore, we observe that the many experiments currently running suffer from a lack of interconnected learning platforms, a lack of documentation of failures and successes and little attention for the forces leading to lock-in and preventing a regime shift. Using two examples, we will illustrate what type of interventions are needed to up-scale nature inclusive innovations.

Keyword 1: innovation studies Keyword 2: sustainable agriculture Keyword 3: agricultural policy