Webinar: piloting a biodiversity indicator in the Teagasc National Farm Survey

As part of the EU SmartAgriHubs project, Teagasc is investigating how to incorporate biodiversity into the Teagasc National Farm Survey. In a recent webinar, I presented the first results from the application of a habitat index to a sample of 300 farms in the NFS. 

In a previous post, I described the general approach that we are taking to pilot the recording of habitat information on 300 farms that participate in the Teagasc National Farm Survey.

A 10-minute summary of our recent work ‘Biodiversity measurement on NFS farms’ is available as a webinar. Scroll to the end of that page, and click on the image for a YouTube video. 

This presentation includes a description of farm habit index that weights the habitats of a farm on a 5-point scale (5 represents higher conservation value), and produces an index value for the farm. The more area of the farm occupied by habitats with higher values, the higher the overall index value. A *preliminary* calculation of the farm habitat index, grouped across the different farm categories, is presented in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Distribution of farm index values (1-5 scale) across the farm categories in our selection of 300 farms in the Teagasc National Farm Survey. (based on preliminary analysis) 

The innovation in this new pilot project is delivered through:

• reliance on satellite imagery to identify broad classes of farmland habitats e.g. ploughed fields, intensively managed grasslands, arable crops, heathlands, peatlands, lakes, ponds, woodlands and so on. (There is also ground-truthing on 10% of the farms.)
  
  
• incorporation of farm-specific photos via a web-based application for uploading and transferring farm photos
  
  
• collation and combination of these data through an automated reporting process that can create customisable farm-specific habitat maps and reports. An example is provided below (Fig. 2), and see a previous post for more detail.
  
  
• provision of the farm habitat report and information to the participant farmers. This can help to better guide and inform their management of farm biodiversity
  
  
• inclusion of a biodiversity assessment in the Teagasc National Farm Survey (NFS). The great benefit of conducting the biodiversity assessment on NFS farms is the ability to link with the time series of the suite of other agronomic, economic, environmental and social data collected by the Teagasc NFS.

Looking to the future

The incorporation of a biodiversity metric into NFS would also help develop the inclusion of biodiversity in the planned transformation of the FADN into the FSDN (Farm Sustainability Data Network) (Kelly et al., 2018). 

Including such an approach on all NFS farms, as the first biodiversity metric to be included in the NFS, would provide an initial baseline assessment of habitat quantity and diversity on different types of Irish farming systems in a way that is nationally representative. Repeated assessment (over time) would also show whether and how habitat biodiversity on different types of Irish farms is changing through time and in response to national and EU policy objectives. A distinct advantage of using the NFS set of farms is that the habitat data can also be investigated in tandem with other financial, environmental and social and economic data collected as part of the FADN. 

With the planned release of the OSI/EPA National Habitat Map in mid-2022, the cost-effectiveness of farm-scale habitat reporting of habitat quantity will greatly increase. In addition, the use of larger drones allows more rapid and affordable collection of data to assess habitat quality. These developments will allow a significant increase in capacity and cost-effectiveness for collection of data on both habitat quantity and quality.

 

Fig. 2. Example of the kind of information included in each farm habitat report. 

Further information

J.A. Finn and P. Moran. A pilot study of methodology for the development of farmland habitat reports for sustainability assessments. Irish Journal of Agricultural and Food Research. DOI: 10.15212/ijafr-2020-0103.

Finn, J.A. 2020.SmartAgriHubs: pilot incorporation of farmland habitats in Teagasc National Farm Survey. Blog post.

Kelly, E., Latruffe, L., Desjeux, Y., Ryan, M., Uthes, S., Diazabakana, A., Dillon, E. and Finn, J.A. 2018. Sustainability indicators for improved assessment of the effects of agricultural policy across the EU: Is FADN the answer? Ecological Indicators. 89: 903-911.

This research was supported by the SmartAgriHubs project, which received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 818182.