facilitates the assessment of the potential for functional biodiversity at farm level. The BPT supports farmers and farm assessors to identify the current situation regarding biodiversity on the farm, to evaluate basic indicators and to select effective measures for a Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP). These measures are described in detail on the website https://insect-responsible.org/.

The BPT Insects has an additional focus on insect protection with specific indicators and protection measures. The indicators of the BPT Insects cover also all criteria of the Basis-Set of Biodiversity Criteria agreed by the German Association “Food for Biodiversity”.

The BPT helps to assess the quality of implementation of measures as well as monitoring of the whole Biodiversity Action Plan. Therefore, the outputs of the BPT are not only useful for farmers, but also interesting for certifiers as well as product and quality managers of food companies. They will get a simple but meaningful overview regarding the quality of the BAP and the biodiversity performance on the farm.

allows standards and food companies to monitor the biodiversity performance of certified farms and/or supplying farmers. The monitoring is based on ?? indicators with high relevance for the protection and creation of potential for biodiversity and the reduction of negative impacts. Most of these indicators are also relevant for the protection and enhancement of insects – especially pollinators.

Furthermore, the indicators of the BMS cover all criteria of the Basic-Set of Biodiversity Criteria agreed by the German Association “Food for Biodiversity”. The results of the BMS based on aggregated data allows standards, companies and cooperatives to evaluate the implementation of the basic-criteria by a specific group of producers.

Standards and food companies have protected access to include data of their associated farms, to aggregate data sets and to elaborate multiple options of analysis by combining the indicators.

The main objective was and is to improve the biodiversity performance of standards and sourcing requirements in the food industry by helping standard organisations to integrate efficient biodiversity criteria into their schemes and motivating food processing companies and retailers to include comprehensive biodiversity criteria into their sourcing guidelines.

Besides advising food standards and companies, training modules and material have been elaborated for farm assessors, certifiers and managers of food companies and the Biodiversity Performance Tool was developed. A Biodiversity Monitoring system and database facilitates monitoring of the biodiversity performance of certified farms. National sector initiatives in Germany and in Spain are further developing the activities after the end of the project in 2020.  

The Initiative was realized by a European consortium of Global Nature Fund, Lake Constance Foundation, Agentur AUF! (Germany), Fundación Global Nature (Spain), Solagro and agoodforgood (France) and Instituto Superior Técnico (Portugal). More information: www.food-biodiversity.eu

The association "Food for Biodiversity" was founded in March 2021 to make a significant contribution to the protection of biodiversity. Food producers and traders, food standards and other industry players, scientific institutions and environmental organisations commit to implementing measures that enhance the protection of biodiversity as a key concern of the food industry and its upstream value chains.

The initiative is pre-competitive, directly serves the non-profit objective of protecting biodiversity and contributes to the transformation towards sustainable and future-proof food systems. The members signed an ambitious self-commitment. Among other things, they commit to incorporating a basic set of biodiversity criteria into standards and supply chains, and to create incentive schemes for farmers willing to implement more and better biodiversity measures. Training for farmers and advisors as well as managers in companies is available, strategies for raising consumer awareness are being developed and the political framework conditions for the protection of biodiversity are to be improved together.

Food for Biodiversity is a lighthouse initiative of "Unternehmen Biologische Vielfalt (UBi) and is financially supported by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection and the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation.

In cooperation with the agriculture, food sector, local authorities and NGOs, insect responsible sourcing regions (IRSRs) are established. Regional working groups with participation of all main land users will implement Regional Biodiversity Action Plans (BAPs) to improve the protection of insects and biodiversity in general at the landscape level. At least 10 frontrunner farms in each region are already implementing proven and innovative measures. More farmers and local authorities, forest managers etc. are motivated to implement BAPs.

The Biodiversity Performance Tool as well as the Biodiversity Monitoring System have been adapted/extended with indicators for insect protection. Monitoring via BPT and BMS will be complemented by a citizen’s science monitoring approach. In all IRSR and beyond, training for farmers, assessors and managers of food companies is offered. Another important goal is to create attractive public and private incentives for farmers that go beyond legally required biodiversity and insect protection. These incentives should recognize the added value of IRSR products and cover an appropriate share of the additional costs. The project will help increase demand for insect-friendly food products by implementing a marketing and communication strategy for the end consumer. The concept of IRSR is transferable to all regions in Germany and the EU. The results and outcomes will be widely disseminated and the establishment of further IRSRs will be supported.

Project partners: Lake Constance Foundation (coordinator), Global Nature Fund, Netzwerk Blühende Landschaft, Bäuerliche Erzeugergemeinschaft Schwäbisch Hall, Nestlé Deutschland.