Keystone-SDA
The burst of the mountain pastures leads to the loss of herbage surfaces and the disappearance of typical cultural landscapes. However, despite higher direct payments, bushes continue to progress, according to an agroscope study.
(Keystone-ATS) Smoking also contributes to the decline in biodiversity, the Federal Center for Skills for Agricultural Research (Agroscope) said on Tuesday. In Switzerland, burst is mainly due to the green alder.
To fight against this phenomenon, there are various incentives in the form of direct payments for the alpine economy. In 2014, the Confederation increased one of them or introduced two new ones. The summer contributions were thus revised upwards.
In this study, Agroscope examined for the first time the effects of subsidies on meadows and burst using data from alpine farms in the canton of Graubünden.
The results show that the increase in direct payments has led, on average, a loss of 2% of the herbage surfaces per farm due to the burst. This corresponds to an average loss of 4.7 ha of grassland per operating in 10 years.
Direct payments can therefore have unwanted effects, according to the authors. On the other hand, their influence on the richness in species, the diversity of structural elements or income has not been studied within the framework of this research.
Possible explanations
Several hypotheses could explain the phenomenon. The spatial distribution of rent animals has changed: in order to protect sensitive species in the promotion of biodiversity, the latter have sometimes been excluded from the pasture, which had the indirect consequence of accelerating burst.
Rent animals playing a preponderant role in the fight against burst, excluding pasture surfaces can thus have unfortunate consequences, notes Agroscope.
Direct payments have sometimes led to a decrease in grinding on the promotional areas for the newly implemented biodiversity. Grinding is considered the most effective and least costly method to fight over the burst.
This combination of untimely incentives could have significantly favored the evolution observed. However, additional research is necessary to better understand these mechanisms, concludes Agroscope. The study appeared in the Journal of Agricultural Economics.
