Significance Statement
The ELIA model comprehensively assesses the links between the energy and information flows driven by farming, the land cover patterns they imprint, and the species richness in human-transformed landscapes. When this model is used as a predictor of biodiversity, the information-based redistribution of energy flows becomes a primary indicator of the key role of farmers’ knowledge and labour in maintaining the ecological functionality of biocultural landscapes by means of a subtle and historically changing human-nature relationship. TheELIA modelling and results are very useful for land-use policies aimed at addressing the energy-food-biodiversity trilemma currently posed at global scale.