Introduction to the challenge addressed

The Regional Agriculture Development Plan 2014-2020, which deadline was postponed to 2022, contains a number of interventions dedicated to farmers  

The intervention supports the active management of "green infrastructure" (buffer strips, hedges and groves, grassy strips and grassy channels) with a connected grassy buffer strip. The aim is to improve water quality, enhance ecological connections and support biodiversity in agricultural areas with typically intensive management, reduce surface erosion phenomena and increase the capacity of atmospheric CO2 fixation and its storage in the soil, as well as requalify simplified agricultural landscapes. Beneficiaries: farmers, farmers' associations, public bodies that run farms.

Resources: 58.2 million euros.

The farm involved in the investment is Società Agricola Ca’ di Mezzo in Pontelongo (Padova – Veneto Region)  a 400 heads beef farm.

 

Description of Innovation

The farmer in 2015 required contribution to the Region authorities in charge of managing the  development plan as reward to an investment which consists in dedicating part of the cultivable area of the farm to 3 different plant housing. In particular 4.000 square meters were planned to be dedicated to bushes, 29.750 to grass and 5.941 to lines of trees and bushes.

The areas involved are registered and monitored for the duration of the whole investment, which can not be shorter than 5 years and can be updated or upgraded every year after the compulsory period. The plant housings must be maintained, which means they have to be kept in order and eventually pruned. The type of plants and their combinations are provided in a list: they must be local and compatible with the crops and the other wild plants already present in the area. 

The control on the respect of the requirements is up to the regional agency for payments in agriculture (AVEPA).

 

Impact on farm performance

In the case of Agricola Ca’ di Mezzo the three types of investment are rewarded differently. Bushes are paid in €/hectar and is 164, grass strips in €/linear meter and is 0.14, trees in €/linear meter and is 2.7.

 

Audio-visual material

All the land areas dedicated to the plant housing are registered in detail at the beginning of the  investment.

 

Some examples of housing of plants, in mixed bushes, in lines of trees and bushes with crops or grass in the middle. 

 

Farmer comment (for Good Practices)

The farmers said that this type of investments are an important contribution to improve the quality of coexistence of production farms and environment; he also said that they take a lot of work for maintenance.

 

 

Further information

https://psrveneto.it/misure/misura-10-pagamenti-agro-climatico-ambientali/