Ecological cross compliance promotes farmland biodiversity in Switzerland

Abstract

In ecological cross compliance, fanners have to meet environmental standards in order to qualify for area-related direct payments. Because this is a strong financial incentive, cross compliance is a potentially powerful policy instrument. We monitored the effectiveness of cross compliance in promoting biodiversity on grassland and on arable land in Switzerland over 8 years. We observed measurable benefits for flora, butterflies, ground beetles, and spiders, in terms of species numbers and/or community composition. However, populations of threatened species showed no signs of benefit. While cross compliance has been in force in Switzerland for almost a decade, it has only recently been introduced in the neighboring European Union. We argue that - provided the environmental standards relating to biodiversity are increased in the future -common farmland biodiversity could be enhanced at the continental scale under cross compliance. The Swiss example shows that appropriate cross-compliance standards benefit farmland biodiversity at field and farm scales, while the conservation of threatened species needs to be addressed by specific programs, acting at the scale of agricultural landscapes.