ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Agron.
Sec. Agroecological Cropping Systems
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fagro.2025.1648022
This article is part of the Research TopicAgroecology in Action: Case Studies, Challenges and Best PracticesView all 6 articles
A novel framework APES - Agroecological practices for assessing Ecosystem Services
Provisionally accepted
- University of Gastronomic Sciences, Bra, Italy
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Ecosystem services (ESs) are increasingly recognised as critical indicators of agricultural sustainability, yet existing assessment frameworks often lack applicability at farm level or fail to account for the synergistic effects of agroecological practices. In response, we developed the APES (Agroecological Practices for Ecosystem Services) framework within the Horizon 2020 RADIANT project. APES is a participatory, practice-based tool designed to assess 22 ecosystem services (eight provisioning and fourteen regulating/supporting) based on the implementation of agroecological practices. The framework was developed through a literature review and refined via participatory workshops with farmers and stakeholders in Greece and Scotland. Provisioning services are assessed through farmer perceptions and crop diversity, while regulating and supporting services are evaluated based on the degree of practice implementation. An illustrative case study on dairy farms in Northern Italy demonstrates the practical application of APES and highlights how ecosystem services emerge from the combination and interaction of multiple strategies within diversified systems. By making ESs visible and actionable, APES supports farmers, researchers, and advisors in driving agroecological transitions and informing more sustainable food system planning.
Keywords: agroecology, Ecosystem services assessment, Sustainable farming systems, Practice-based framework, Farm level assessment
Received: 16 Jun 2025; Accepted: 28 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Bassignana, Bruno and Migliorini. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Paola Migliorini, University of Gastronomic Sciences, Bra, Italy
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