Agronomic aspects of extensive grassland farming and biodiversity management

Grasslands in Europe make an important contribution to the biodiversity of agricultural landscapes. The species and community diversity of grasslands is a result of a traditional extensive grassland management interacting with a broad range of site conditions. Until the early decades of the last century, grassland sites were hardly ameliorated and the agronomic potential was generally low, depending on the fertility of the soils. From the second half of the last century onwards, the production from grassland was markedly improved by regular fertilisation and liming and by artificial drainage of wet sites. Correspondingly, the stocking rates and the cutting frequency increased. Thus, biodiversity strongly decreased, and unimproved species-rich swards only persisted on a low percentage of the total grassland area. The preservation of the remaining species-rich grassland is a primary goal of nature conservation. The continuation of traditional ways of grassland management that would best preserve biodiversity is often not compatible with the requirements of intensive livestock production. Therefore, this grassland is at risk of being abandoned from agricultural use and there is a need for compensation payments for farmers to maintain grassland management. Apart from the unimproved species-rich grassland, there is an increasing area of now de-intensified species-poor grassland which can be managed to increase biodiversity. Grazing at a low stocking rate seems to have the potential to facilitate the restoration of diverse swards and to support reasonable individual performances of the grazing animals.