“Pretty much just ‘fluffing’ around” : The complexity of safeguarding farmland biodiversity in Scania through the Greening

Sammanfattning: Intensified agriculture has led to a dramatic decline of farmland biodiversity in Europe during the 20th century, making farmland policies of utmost importance within the European Union [EU]. The Greening, which is a part of the Common Agricultural Policy [CAP] was created to combat the negative effects of intensified agriculture. However, the policy did not achieve the goal of safeguarding farmland biodiversity and will be replaced in the upcoming CAP-reform. This study researches if a landscape perspective and nature-inclusive farming can increase the efficiency of the Greening in Scanian farmlands. Through semi-structured interviews with professionals on a regional level, we investigated: What are the obstacles that hinder regional solutions to farmland biodiversity issues in Scania, Sweden? Through the lens of governance, the results emphasized a need for new arrangements between all stakeholders in order to solve the issue of declining farmland biodiversity in Scania. The main obstacles for incorporating a landscape perspective and nature-inclusive farming are the lack of regional influence in the Greening, short program periods, and low profitability for farmers. We argue that these obstacles stem from the complex, multilevel governing system of the EU, and the projectification of the CAP. We suggest adopting a Common Pool Resource [CPR] framework for farmland biodiversity in Scania as an efficient way of surpassing the obstacles. However, further research is needed to create a cohesive view of the use value of farmland biodiversity. We concluded that although the results might be applicable to other regions within the EU, it is important to further research other regions in terms of local landscape conditions and local governance for effective results.