Nature Management and livelihood strategies on Danish organic farms

Summary

The paper present the first results on a study of landscape elements on Danish organic farms and their management. 346 organic farms representing main landscape and farm types in Denmark and totalling approximately 10% of the organic farming population has been interviewed on the existence and age of hedgerows, ponds and wildlife habitats, as well as permanent grassland managment on the farm. Moreover information on socio-economic aspects has been collected and land use and size of farm has been retrived from registry. Results show that the three landscape elements has to be analysed separately as their relationship to farms characteristics vary. Permanent grassland and hedgerows are related to production parameters like farm type. Farm size is significantly related to all landscape elements. Old landscape elements constitute a surprisingly larege share of the total content.