Abstract
Agro-environmental measures promoted by the European Union focus mainly on environmental protection by maintaining sustainable levels of productivity that are adequate to the agro-ecological conditions of each region on different Member States. Among these European Union promoted measures the one known as “Extensive Forage Systems” is particularly relevant for the Mediterranean Region. In order to analyze the impact of this measure and to verify if the high expenditure of communitarian funds, with its implementation in Mediterranean soils, is aligned with the predicted benefits, a seven-year study in a southern Portugal region was conducted. In this regard, several soil chemical parameters such as organic matter, pH, electrical conductivity, “available” phosphorus, “available” potassium and heavy metal levels (Cd, Cr, Cu, Zn, Mn, Pb and Ni), were assessed, in 1329 different plots in order to represent some of the existing diversity of the Mediterranean environment, identified by the Portuguese Parcel Identification System, and considering the possibility to evaluate the evolution of these parameters on the main soil types of the region. The obtained results enabled us to verify that the application of the agro-environmental measure “Extensive Forage Systems” did not lead, during the 7 years of the study, to any significant change in terms of organic matter, soil pH and/or heavy metals content. Still it contributed for a small growth on “available” phosphorus and potassium levels and to a significant increase on Soil electrical conductivity (EC). As a final conclusion we can refer that the application of the agro-environmental measure “Extensive Forage Systems”, in soil, clime and cultural conditions prevailing in this study (Typical Mediterranean conditions from the South of Europe), did not reach its main objective, which was to increase the organic matter content in soils.
Highlights
Agricultural and Forestry landscapes occupy a large area of the European territory [1,2]
Another fact that undoubtedly helps to justify these results is that extensive forage systems are of low productivity with low biomass production only allowing for reduced livestock [55] and, leading to a slow process regarding the increase of the soil organic carbon content
From the results obtained in the present study we conclude that, under typical Mediterranean conditions, the application of the European Union (EU) Agro-Environmental Measures (AEM) known as “Extensive Forage Systems” did not lead, at least during the first 7 years of its application, to significant changes to the soils organic carbon and pH, independently from the soils group under analysis
Summary
Agricultural and Forestry landscapes occupy a large area of the European territory [1,2]. Even if farmers’ activity consists in the production of foodstuffs, in this activity they jointly apply ancestral techniques with the support and use of available scientific and technological measures with the aim to provide quality food products at the lowest possible price [5,7] For this reason, the level of technical and professional demand, for the agricultural producers is currently very high and complex [8]. These agro-environment measures (i.e., support for organic farming, agricultural conservation practices, protection and maintenance of terraces, safer use of pesticides, integrated crop management, management of less intensive grazing systems, reduction of animal stocking and the utilization of certified compost [11,12]) offer the opportunity to increase soils organic matter content and its biodiversity, while helping to reduce its erosion, contamination and compaction
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