Ecological cross compliance promotes farmland biodiversity in Switzerland
Résumé
In ecological cross compliance, farmers have to meet environmental standards in order to qualify for arearelated
direct payments. Because this is a strong financial incentive, cross compliance is a potentially powerful
policy instrument. We monitored the effectiveness of cross compliance in promoting biodiversity on
grassland and on arable land in Switzerland over 8 years. We observed measurable benefits for flora, butterflies,
ground beetles, and spiders, in terms of species numbers and/or community composition. However,
populations of threatened species showed no signs of benefit. While cross compliance has been in force in
Switzerland for almost a decade, it has only recently been introduced in the neighboring European Union.
We argue that – provided the environmental standards relating to biodiversity are increased in the future –
common farmland biodiversity could be enhanced at the continental scale under cross compliance. The
Swiss example shows that appropriate cross-compliance standards benefit farmland biodiversity at field and
farm scales, while the conservation of threatened species needs to be addressed by specific programs, acting
at the scale of agricultural landscapes.