Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

We propose to develop and test policies and associated practices that farmers can use to enhance biodiversity while maintaining agricultural output. A variety of such policies and practices have been suggested but they have not been evaluated on the ground, and compared in terms of their effectiveness in sustaining biodiversity. Hence our overall research question: Are there effective ways to indirectly measure the biodiversity of farmland (i.e., biodiversity indicators) and, if so, can we use these indicators to identify effective practices that farmers can use to enhance biodiversity on their farmlands? We hypothesize a strong link between biodiversity and landscape heterogeneity, i.e., the variety of landcover/landuse types and the complexity of their spatial distribution. We propose to measure biodiversity (birds, amphibians, bees, and butterflies) at a large number of agricultural sites throughout Eastern Ontario. We will use remotely-sensed data supplemented with farming practice information to measure heterogeneity of the landscapes surrounding these sites at different spatial scales (within 1 to 10 km of the sites). We will then build statistical models relating biodiversity to the landscape heterogeneity measures. The heterogeneity measures or combination of measures with the strongest relationships to biodiversity will be used as the "biodiversity indicators". We will then build a landscape simulation model, from which we will determine the relationships between various possible agri-environmental policies/practices and the selected biodiversity indicators, to determine which agri-environmental policies are most effective in enhancing biodiversity. Our research collaborators and supporting organizations, Environment Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs, ELUTIS Modelling and Consulting Inc., Food Alliance, Dairy Farmers of Canada, and Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada, will use the results in their mandates to inform farmers of best practices for environmental stewardship.