Rural Development

News

In recent months, the EIP Ecosystem Services project (Contribution of agriculture holdings in climate change mitigation and adaptation through ecosystem services) has continued educating partner farms on climate change and its impact on agriculture. We have been involved in further developing our web application that will allow farms to get as much helpful information as possible on selected ecosystem services - carbon sink, recreation and biodiversity - in one place. On October 9th, the EIP Ecosystem Services partners gathered in Pivka at the Pivka Intermittent Lakes Park for the 2nd Climate Change Workshop, where we learned more about what climate change means for agriculture and individual farms in particular. We also had the opportunity to visit the DINA Centre on large carnivores, where we had the chance to learn more about the confrontation between agriculture and large carnivores. Project partner Sinergise presented progress made in the development of the web application.
On November 21st and 22nd, our project will also be present at the 38th traditional agricultural advisor meeting, where we will present a poster about our achievements in the last year.

Contribution of farms to the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change using the concept of ecosystem services

Partnership:

  • Stritih, Sustainable Development, Bovec
  • Farm Volk, Suhorje
  • Sinergise d.o.o., Ljubljana
  • Public Institute – Tourism Pivka, Pivka
  • Farm Jernejevi, Slavinje
  • Farm Janez Herlah, Radegunda
  • Farm Frank, Topolc
  • Farm Brinjevka d.o.o. so.p., Mali dol
  • Biotechnic centre Naklo, Strahinj
  • Institute Jabolko, Metlika

Approved funding: 249.986,41 EUR
Project duration: 18.5.2022 - 18.5.2025
Project is co-financed by the European Union`s European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and Republic of Slovenia as part of Rural Development Programme 2014 – 2020.
Measure: Collaboration from the Rural Development Programme of Republic of Slovenia 2014 – 2020.
Submeasure 16.5: Support for joint action for climate change mitigation or adaptation and for a joint approach to environmental projects and common environmental practice for EIP projects.

Project summary

The project addresses implementing climate change mitigation and adaptation measures at the level of owners or managers of agricultural land.
Much has been achieved regarding climate change mitigation and adaptation mostly on the strategic level – this is proven by numerous international commitments, action plans and legislative packages, such as the European Green Deal. The planning and deployment of measures is much less developed at lower levels, with implementation being the weakest.

The project will establish and test climate change adaptation and mitigation measure implementation on five farms and in the Pivka Seasonal Lakes Park. The practices developed within this project will contribute to finding systemic solutions in this field and will be appropriate for dissemination to other farms. Ecosystem services have proven to be an appropriate conceptual framework for planning and implementation of these measures as well in communication with other stakeholders.
The main project goal is to improve the capability of farms in in regard to climate change adaptation and to encourage planning and implementation of relevant measures at the level of farms in practice, using an ecosystem services based digital application developed as part of this project.

Among the activities being carried out in the three years of the project are:

  • the development of a digital application.
  • capacity building for farm owners and managers.
  • trying out the concept of ecosystem services as a decision-making tool for planning and implementation of climate change adaptation measures at the level of farms.
  • establishment and implementation a number of concrete climate change mitigation and adaptation measures on the five farms and in the Pivka Seasonal Lakes Park.

We will also define the development potential of the farms based on the climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, followed by an analysis of the efficiency of the measures carried out. The project partner farms will thus become ‘good practice farms’, serving as generators of change in the area.

Throughout the project the farm owners and managers, as well as other stakeholders, that are crucial in the field of climate change mitigation and adaptation, will gain important, concrete, and practical knowledge and better understanding of good practices in this field. The developed digital application will make it possible to specify measures as well as define and clearly visualise the most important areas where measures should be applied.

More on rural development in the EU: https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/common-agricultural-policy/rural-develo...
More on Rural Development Programme in Slovenia: https://skp.si/

Project duration 18.5.2022 - 18.5.2025