Guidance and tool to support farmers in taking aware decisions on ecological focus areas

This document constitutes the final report of a project aimed to support farmers select Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs) for their farms. It provides a description of the approach taken, a synthesis of the knowledge collated and a description of the outputs that have emerged, including the prototype software that has been developed.

The introduction of EFAs on the farm has potential to deliver tangible environmental improvements, which include improvements in floods and drought management. However, it is also recognised that the extent of such improvements, and so the success of the policy, will ultimately depend on the specific EFA elements a farmer selects as well as the particular characteristics of the holding. To address this issue the JRC commissioned a project to develop a software tool to help farmers select EFA elements that can deliver the optimal environmental benefits.