Social learning and land lease to stimulate the delivery of ecosystem services in intensive arable farming

Abstract

Current intensive arable production systems tend to favour food production at the cost of the provision of other ecosystem services. In order to decrease the environmental impact and increase the variety and level of ecosystem services delivery, arable farmers would need to change their current practices. Governance arrangements aimed at such changes of behaviour not only include those from government, but also from institutions as developed bottom-up by farmers, other actors and networks. This paper investigates the role that governance arrangements developed by groups of farmers in intensive arable production systems in The Netherlands may have in changing agronomic practices that will improve the delivery of regulating and cultural ecosystem services. We evaluate the arrangements according to their potential effects on farmers and their social environment. Firstly, we consider the effect on farmers’ motivation and ability to change their practices. And secondly we consider the legitimation of, and demand for behavioural change by their social environment. The results suggest that social learning and land lease are promising supportive governance arrangements for behavioural change, and that private and public governance arrangements can be complementary.