One of the goal of the Agenda 2030 is about the Sustainable Consumption and Production, that means encourage and promote the development of programs in support of regional and national initiatives to accelerate the shift towards sustainable consumption and production, to promote social and economic development within the carrying capacity of ecosystems. In line with this, sustainability in agriculture and, more specifically, reducing pesticide use are major issues in several multi-level policies. For instance, the European Union’s Farm-to-Fork strategy aims to cut the use of chemical pesticides in half by 2030. Organic farming is an option, but it is still a debated option to ensure sustainable agriculture. In fact, its effects on biodiversity, ecosystems services and crop production are still rarely quantified. Wine production care about these topics. New interesting research explore the pro-environmental behavioral intention of wine producers and reveal that wine production and biodiversity conservation do not necessarily exclude each other, which implies the existence of a safe operating space where biodiversity and wine production can be combined.
Viticulture pro-environmental behaviours
A recent Italian study focuses on the Prosecco Hills area and it tries to quantify the pro-environmental behavioral intention of Prosecco winegrowers, focusing on its behavioral determinants, namely knowledge, responsibility, and self-identity. In this region viticulture represents not only opportunities and development for rural areas, but also a source of social debate, because of the impact of pesticides, the environmental risks linked to water and soil contamination, the decline in biodiversity and the landscape transformation.
In particular the very discussed problems of the Prosecco Hills concern the pesticides’ use and the monoculture land use. Nevertheless, sometimes producers’ efforts towards sustainable farming practices are invisible to local citizens because of their lack of knowledge or scarce understanding of the environmental benefits of producers’ farming practices.
The study of Gianpietri et al. [1] analyzes the questionnaires submitted to about a hundred winegrowers. To evaluate the winegrowers’ intention to engage in more sustainable viticulture a Partial Least Square software has been used, with a is a variance-based procedure well suited for exploratory research, even with a limited sample, like a hundred of volunteers. More than half of the sample adopts voluntary integrated agriculture (54%), while only a minority (5%) is organic. Moreover, 29% of the farms adopt a sustainable certification scheme. Hence, a large part of the sample already adopts sustainability-related production practices or adheres to certification schemes.
The study noted that Prosecco winegrowers in the questioned sample show a high pro-environmental behavioral intention, they show the intention to pursue environmental sustainability in the area in the future. Moreover, these winegrowers know well that performing some specific farming practices provides benefits for the environment so they feel responsible for achieving environmental sustainability in the area. This highlights the recognition of local producers not only as entrepreneurs that are merely interested in generating profit through production but also as environmental caretakers of the Prosecco area. Responsibility is found to be the main predictor of intention, followed by self-identity and knowledge. It follows that wine growers who feel more responsible for acting sustainably are looking to continue farming pro-environmentally in the future. Another important result from the analysis is the evidence that greater knowledge is positively associated with a greater responsibility towards sustainable farming management in the Prosecco area. Hence, improving the knowledge provided to farmers could help in reinforcing the responsibility and, as a consequence, provide a better-suited implementation of more sustainable environmental farming practices [1].
Not only organic farming in vineyards…
In the study of Beaumelle et al. [1], conducted in the southwestern France near Bordeaux, strategies to limit biodiversity loss with agricultural production are investigated. It is well-known that organic farming enhanced biodiversity and pest control, but decreased wine production. Using a statistical analysis, they investigated: local management of vineyards, multitrophic diversity (taxonomic groups around the vineyards), landscape contest and multifunctionality (for each ecosystem service category – wine production, natural pest control and soil quality and fertility-, they calculated a multi-functionality index).
Data demonstrate that compared to conventional farming, organic farming positively affected the richness of multiple trophic groups and levels of natural pest control, a most important ecosystem service, in perennial systems. As expected, wine production was lower in organic than conventional systems. No significant relationship between biodiversity and production either within or across farming systems has been found. Producing wine while simultaneously maintaining biodiversity across trophic levels thus appears compatible, but organic farming alone is not a solution. Indeed, synergies and tradeoffs between biodiversity and ecosystem services were similar in both farming systems.
Even in organic vineyards, farming practices rising wine production increase detrimental effects on a key biodiversity-mediated ecosystem service. Nevertheless, the results indicated that landscape complexity can promote the positive effects of organic farming on pest control services.
In conclusion, high biodiversity and wine production do not necessarily exclude each other. Organic farming promoted biodiversity and natural pest control and can thus contribute to reaching a “safe operating space” where biodiversity conservation and multiple ecosystem services provision can be combined in perennial agroecosystems, but organic farming alone will not suffice to reach multifunctionality, and highlight the need to complement organic farming with other solutions at both the local and landscape scales. These important insights are the basis for designing multifunctional agroecosystems able to reconcile biodiversity conservation with agricultural production in the future.
The results of these recent European studies highlight the importance of both the sensibilization of winegrowers towards new and sustainable options for farming and of the knowledge of how biodiversity responds towards farming actions. These insights could be important for the future actions that must be necessarily adopted to rich the objectives of a sustainable world agriculture.
[1] Pro-Environmental Viticulture: Status Quo and Perspectives from Prosecco Winegrowers in Italy; Giampietri E Trestini S – Sustainability, (2023), 1073, 15(2)
[2] Biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services and organic viticulture: A glass half-full; Beaumelle L, Giffard B, Tolle P, Winter S, Entling M, Benítez E, Zaller J, Auriol A, Bonnard O, Charbonnier Y, Fabreguettes O, Joubard B, Kolb S, Ostandie N, Reiff J, Richart-Cervera S, Rusch A – Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, (2023), 108474, 351
