Appreciation of the functions of grasslands by European stakeholders

The European project MultiSward aimed to increase the reliance of farmers on grasslands and on multi-species swards for competitive and sustainable ruminant production systems. Active participation of stakeholders was one of the key objectives of the project. The aim of the current study was to get an insight into the importance of grasslands for stakeholders in Europe. An online questionnaire on the functions of grasslands was developed in eight languages and 1959 valid responses were obtained. Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland were the countries with the highest responses. All of the stakeholder groups that were identified as being important in the stakeholder analysis responded to the questionnaire. When asked about the importance of different aspects of sustainability, stakeholders, on average, valued economic aspects the highest, followed by ecological aspects and finally, social aspects. There were, however, differences between countries and stakeholder types. The results of the questionnaire show that individual functions of grasslands are highly recognized and appreciated by all relevant stakeholder groups. We conclude that the large European grassland area is considered by all stakeholders to be a valuable resource that is essential for economy, environment and people.