Umsetzung von Agrarumweltmassnahmen auf Bio- und konventionellen Betrieben der Schweiz

Summary

The willingness of farmers to adopt agri-environmental measures depends greatly on the farm type and management as well as on the geographic conditions of the farm.
The present paper analyses the differences in uptake of agri-environmental measures between organic and non-organic farms. A statistical comparison based on the 2005 Swiss Farm Census showed that organic farms have on average 68% higher adoption rates than non-organic farms, with a mean level of 22% on organic and 13% on nonorganic farms. The greatest differences were identified for the measures “hedges”, “extensive meadows”, “less intensive meadows”. The differences in uptake can only be partly explained by economic differences, such as different costs at farm level.
Differences between organic and conventional farmers’ attitudes to nature conservation could be another important factor. Furthermore, we argue that the higher uptake of agri-environmental measures indicates on average higher biodiversity levels on organic farms.