What would happen...
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if farmers would get paid according to the ecological 'performance' of their land?
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if the protection of vulnerable species no longer means a loss but a source of income?
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if farmers themselves decided which measures they want to take to help wildlife on their land?
Results-based payment schemes (RBPS) are a new type of agri-environmental scheme that aim at protecting declining species and habitats on farmland while incorporating local knowledge and traditional management practices. The idea to reward improvements in farmland biodiversity is not new, but this approach is: leaving behind the notion of conservation as a positive by-product of agriculture and encouraging farmers to produce it as an equal result - to farm for nature. There are several pilot projects taking place in Europe, most of which are carried out in Ireland.
The views of farmers on Euopean policies have often been ignored and the design and practicality of the schemes have been neglected. This project looks at the social worlds of Irish small-scale farmers as they participate in an RBPS. How do they navigate the demands of the economy and the constraints that EU policies put them under? Which role do they think they fill, and how do they produce agency? What type of relationship do they have with their animals, and how would one describe the links that tie them to their land? Do they think some entities are worth preserving? During the anthropological fieldwork that I have conducted for nearly three months in the spring and summer of 2022 , I have worked with several farmers based in County Galway and Carlow / Wexford, aiming to answer this question:
„What is the role of the Irish farmers at the interface between conservation and the market?”
My thesis focuses on small-scale farming in Ireland and is concerned with tradition and change, agency and continuity as well as animal husbandry and human-wildlife relationships.
It is supported in the context of the programme Creativity and Studies of the University of Göttingen by the AKB Stiftung, a non-profit Foundation of the Büchting Family.
