The intensification of agriculture in recent decades has resulted in a sharp decline in agrobiodiversity and the loss of many landscape features and structures in the agricultural landscape. The agricultural policy instruments such as agri-environmental schemes (AES) are not so effective till now. The main reason is that installation, implementation and maintenance of AES are often not adapted to the specific location. In addition, the motivation of farmers to participate in such measures needs to be increased.

To to be able to integrate the promotion of agrobiodiversity into operational farming processes, it is necessary to set up planning and advisory instruments so that ecologically reasonable and economically feasible measures can be developed and implemented. In future, digital technologies should be used increasingly for this purpose. In some federal states (e.g. Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony), business plans are already implemented to promote biodiversity on farms. They evaluate existing structures and species occurrences and develop a business-specific catalogue of measures to improve biodiversity on their farmland.

With this project, planning, assessment and advisory tools are to be developed which are specially adapted to the intensively used arable farming region of Saxony-Anhalt. To achieve this aim, the project was divided into six sub-modules:

• Development of an assessment  tool to determine the status quo of agrobiodiversity
• Development of algorithms to evaluate former achievements to promote agrobiodiversity with regard to strengths and weaknesses
• Derivation of business-specific development goals
• Development of a measure tool
• Development of an assessment tool for evaluation and optimization of measures
• Knowledge transfer of the results to the agricultural practice

The project "Development of a planning and consulting tool for acquiring and promoting biodiversity in intensively used arable farming regions" is funded by the Ministry for the Environment, Agriculture and Energy Saxony-Anhalt, Department of Agriculture.

The following materials are available on the subject of "More biodiversity in the agricultural landscape":

• Measure sheets for biodiversity-promoting measures in the agricultural landscape (as of April 2021)
  • Hems and field borders
  • Perennial flower strips
  • Annual flower strips
  • Protective strips
  • Stripes of field wild herbs
  • Woody structures
  • Skylark window
  • Measures for upgrading the farm
  • Biodiversity lanes in vineyards
• Practical guide to hems and field borders (2nd edition 2019)
• Instructions for the successful creation and maintenance of perennial flower strips and flower areas with local wild species
• Poster too "Operating plan for biodiversity - a planning and advisory tool for farms " (As of June 2018)
• Poster too "Establishing and maintaining species-rich field margins on productive locations in the Central German dry area " (As of June 2018)
• Poster too "Effects of perennial wild plant flower strips on the floristic and avifaunistic diversity in the agricultural landscape of Saxony-Anhalt" (As of June 2018)