Farming in a changing environment: Increasing biodiversity on farm for the supply of multiple ecosystem services

Among natural resources, soils continue to be poorly represented in ecosystem services frameworks and decision-making processes. Similarly, the supply of multiple ecosystem services from agro-ecosystems and trade-offs between services remains under-researched. As a consequence, it is unclear how and to what extent agriculture can deliver on environmental sustainability, whilst maintaining current levels of profitability. One of the main barriers to implementation of environmental management practices is the perception by the farming industry that environmental gains come at a cost and impact negatively on profitability. Therefore, we need to demonstrate that inclusion of all the natural resources on farm in farm system design and management offers flexibility for the farm system and insures improved sustainability and greater resilience. In this study, an ecosystem approach was paired with a new generation farm system optimisation model and the inclusion of natural resources beyond land, especially biodiversity, to explore farm system design, and report on ecosystem services beyond food and fibre from different parts of the farm. The approach was tested on a sheep and beef farm in Waikato, New Zealand to explore the added benefits of replanting fragile parts of the farm landscape for soil and biodiversity enhancement on reduced emissions to air and water, and trade-offs between different services and farm profitability. The approach showed that it is possible to define and include ecological boundaries within which resources can be managed to deliver multiple benefits ranging from increased per hectare profitability to decreased environmental footprints. This is a feature analytical farm system frameworks will require in the future. The research also highlighted the importance of developing our understanding of the relationship between the condition and function of indigenous biodiversity fragments and adjacent pastoral ecosystems and their contribution to economic, environmental, cultural and social outcomes on and beyond the farm. Such capability to define and include ecological boundaries within which resources should be managed is a feature that analytical farm system frameworks will require into the future.