Paris - A $1.53 billion scheme to promote biodiversity on European farmlands may have negligible benefit, according to a scientific study made public yesterday into the longest-running programme of this kind.
About 20 per cent of EU farmland has been placed under protection schemes in the hope of encouraging the return of insects, bird and plant species decimated by pesticides, insecticides and fertilisers.
The current cost of this is €1.7 billion a year, accounting for about 4 per cent of the EU's farm budget. The figure is due to rise to 10 per cent of the budget in the medium term. But biologists at Wageningen University, The Netherlands, warn that even as billions more euros are about to be poured into the EU scheme, no-one has checked to see if it actually works.