Making agriculture and livestock production compatible with biodiversity conservation. InBioAgro CREA Project

Foto: Mayra Varela 

The Argentine Association of Regional Agricultural Experimentation Consortia (CREA) is an NGO made up of more than 2,200 farmers in Argentina, organized in 19 productive regions. It is a people-to-people organization that generates and shares technical information to improve production, and hopes to become a benchmark for innovation and sustainability. Through its Environment Area in the Research and Development Unit, CREA launched the InBioAgro project to incorporate biodiversity conservation on farms belonging to the network.

Increasing demand for food, when the expansion of farmland often conflicts with the preservation of natural ecosystems, calls for innovative and collaborative approaches. Farmers still need more knowledge and tools to improve management, and to adopt innovative solutions that can make production more sustainable. At InBioAgro, our focus therefore is on promoting more collaboration between farmers and experts to identify on-farm management indicators and practices, with state-of-the-art scientific and technical knowledge to maintain and improve biodiversity. For us, good agricultural practices are the best way to do sustainable farming, and farmers’ participation in this creative process will be fundamental if we are to make it compatible with the conservation of biodiversity.

The Land Innovation Fund has supported CREA's Sustainable Soy in the Gran Chaco program by facilitating implementation of the InBioAgro Project in Argentina's Chaco Region. The project took a cross-disciplinary approach from the outset, with contributions from biodiversity experts, mainly biologists and agronomists, members of institutions such as the National Agricultural Technology Institute (INTA), the CONICET Regional Ecology Institute in Tucumán, the School of Agronomy at the University of Buenos Aires, and NGOs such as The Nature Conservancy and the ProYungas Foundation.

Interaction among farmers, consultants and biodiversity experts allowed us to develop and evaluate a comprehensive and participatory methodology to address this issue on 12 farms in the region and make their production systems more sustainable (Figure 1). These farms encompass approximately 50,349 hectares with mostly soy and corn crops, followed by wheat, beans and sorghum. This paper will discuss the methodology developed and used for biodiversity conservation, as part of a process of continuous improvement of environmental management on CREA network members' farms in the Argentine Chaco.

Figure 1. Location of the 12 farms surveyed in the Chaco Ecoregion and surrounding areas. The different ecoregions covered by the survey are indicated (Dry Chaco, border with Humid Chaco and Espinal), with land cover based on MapBiomas Argentina (2022). Bottom left: location of the ecoregions covered by the survey in Argentina. Prepared by: A. S. Nanni.

CREA’s InBioAgro Methodology

The project's general objective is to define and disseminate concrete and feasible strategies to conserve biodiversity on CREA members' farms. These strategies include management practices and actions with positive impacts on conservation areas. To achieve this objective, a participatory and collaborative working methodology was developed for biodiversity management on CREA farms. The methodology is divided into 4 stages:

1) Self-assessment: The process begins with a self-diagnosis by filling out a form to get an initial picture of the productive establishment. This form is a working tool that will be used in the interdisciplinary workshops. 

2) Interdisciplinary workshops: These are spaces for exchange and participatory creation, where farmers, consultants, technicians and biodiversity experts together carry out an in-depth diagnosis of each farm. They identify conservation areas and possible improvements to implement, with specific strategies and needs for each farm's production system and landscape (Figure 2). These workshops also level the biodiversity knowledge playing field for all the farmers and technical consultants, putting the issues clearly on their agenda. 

Figure 2. Images of the workshop held in May 2023. Working groups with experts and farmers prepared an in-depth diagnosis of each participating farm. 

3) Biodiversity monitoring and preparation of the baseline: After diagnosing the farm and defining the conservation areas, data from the biodiversity monitoring in the selected environments sets the baseline. Major challenges to good biodiversity monitoring include insufficient financial and technical resources, as well as inadequate methodologies for comprehensive, ongoing monitoring of biodiversity in agricultural areas. A standardized protocol has been designed for use in different sites and conditions, to generate comparable information and, at the same time, to enable preparation of a baseline of the biodiversity present on the farm, recognizing the different environments or conservation areas. 

This monitoring protocol targets different biological groups of flora and fauna, selected because of their importance for the stability and sustainability of systems in the region. Those groups are: pollinating insects, soil meso- and macrofauna, birds, woody vegetation, and medium and large mammals. In addition, soil samples are also taken to characterize the edaphic environment and overall soil health (Figure 3). 

Figure 3. Images of field monitoring in the region. 

Once the monitoring is complete, workshops with experts produce a qualitative analysis of the protocol developed and implemented in stage 3 (Figure 4). 

​​​​​Figure 4. SWOT analysis of the biodiversity monitoring protocol designed for agricultural/livestock systems in the Chaco region. 

SWOT Analysis: Monitoring Protocol

Strengths: Designed by experts. Facilitates understanding of large-scale analyses. Monitors diversity of taxonomic groups and environments. Considers crops as an environment in sampling. Methodology for bird sampling measures other useful variables. Good training and consensus with technicians. Participatory design. Easy implementation. 

Weaknesses: High cost, Number of replications. Limited approach to vegetation sampling. Lack of standardization of all environments. Subdivision of environments into categories, resulting in few points per category. No previous visits to the fields before defining the environments. 

Opportunities: Interaction with farmers to co-create and raise awareness. Impacts on new farmers, especially younger generations. Creation of specialized and quality working groups. Generation of a network of professionals who can leverage the work done. 

Threats: Not enough time for a thorough analysis of the information collected. No postdoctoral program (postdoc). Lack of support initiatives at the political level. 

The monitoring results are the basis for determining the status of biodiversity. They are used to report on each pilot field, to set conservation objectives, and to design improvement strategies with different levels of complexity, in order to favor biodiversity in general and/or specific biological groups. 

4) Implementation of improvements: Improvement strategies focus on two main components: conservation areas and management practices. Once improvements have been implemented – such as reforestation with native species, enrichment of paths and fences with nectariferous species, creation of corridors, protection and improvement of lowlands, incorporation of service crops, placement of wildlife rescue ramps in water tanks, among others – then short, medium- and long-term follow-up monitoring can begin, depending on the measures adopted (Figure 5). The process will continue with periodic monitoring of the same biological groups to evaluate the measures’ impacts on biodiversity. This will enable definition of indicators that will be essential for scaling up the methodology to more farmers in the region. 

Figure 5. Reforestation day with native species on the Bremor farm (A), in Laguna Larga, Córdoba (source: InBioAgro Project and GIRA Project), and on the El Guadal farm (B), in Bandera, Santiago del Estero. 

​​​Achievements and Challenges 

The InBioAgro project has made significant progress. Its participatory methodology has integrated a variety of stakeholders, facilitating both specialized diagnoses and the identification of areas to conserve in each field. In addition, its biodiversity monitoring protocol, implemented on all participating farms, was evaluated through a collaborative inter-institutional process. This approach has consolidated teamwork and cooperation among institutions, integrating diverse fields of knowledge and perspectives, and has been a key to developing sustainable solutions that promote economic development and protect natural habitats. Good agricultural practices and indicators, however, must always adjust to two key factors: (i) evolving scientific and technical knowledge, which may introduce new and more effective practices, and (ii) changes in human demands on agricultural production. The project has identified knowledge gaps in the region and suggested possible lines of research to develop new indicators and evaluate biodiversity management practices. Finally, farmers and consultants, throughout their participation in the project, have shown great interest in achieving more sustainable production and in respecting biodiversity. 

The project's challenge is to promote good agricultural practices through active collaboration among farmers, technicians and researchers. Through their joint efforts, the project will seek to develop guidelines for the design and implementation of practices and to assess their impacts on biodiversity through ongoing monitoring. 

* Federico Fritz is Agronomist and InBioAgro CREA project leader; Mayra Varela is Lic. in Biological Sciences and responsible for execution of the InBioAgro CREA projec; Laura Caravaca is Agronomist and Leader of the Soy Sustainability Project in the Argentine Chaco; Guillermo García is Agronomist and CREA Environment Area Leader.