The Impact of Regenerative Agriculture on Provisioning Ecosystem Services: An Example in Southeast Spain

Abstract

The objective of this work is to evaluate the impact of regenerative agriculture alternatives in rainfed almond crops on a range of ecosystems services. A Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) was conducted to evaluate the different land management alternatives integrating different quantitative and qualitative indicators based on long-term field research. Three land management alternatives were analyzed: (i) conventional management, (ii) native cover crops, and (iii) seeded cover crops. MCA was able to evaluate the performance of the three alternatives considering different priorities of two groups of farmers (conventional and regenerative) and score the different scenarios. The alternative of natural cover crops had the best score in almost all the groups of ecosystem services and economic indicators. The sustainability, acceptance, and stability of the scenarios were achieved and provided an integrated view of impacts that can help decision making.

Keywords

• multi-criteria analysis
• ecosystem services
• regenerative agriculture
• CAP
• Green Deal