Illustrating agricultural ecosystem services

Ongoing funding project

The cooperation project “Assessment of individual farm agroecosystem services (AÖSL) to promote site- and environmentally-friendly dairy farming” aims to bring important agroecosystem services of dairy farms closer to society and to emphasize the importance of agriculture in Austria.

To enable data-driven statements about the site-specific and environmental sustainability of milk production at the individual farm level, a practical, free online tool is being developed. This tool will allow farmers to independently assess how their farming practices promote the provision of ecosystem services and identify areas for improvement. A clear and concise presentation format will be developed to allow farms to communicate their farm's ecological sustainability to consumers.

The data can be aggregated to make regional or Austria-wide statements about the sustainability of the dairy sector. Dairy processing companies thus receive information they can use for sustainability reporting.

Suske consulting is leading the project, in which the agricultural research institute Raumberg-Gumpenstein, the WOERLE dairy farm, several farmers and the Zirbitzkogel-Grebenzen nature park are collaborating.

The project runs until March 2029, with support from the federal government, the states and the European Union.