Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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nature to protect it. How ridiculous. We all know there is more to life than
money. But perhaps these economists think that the best way to argue from
an environmentalist's viewpoint is to put the environment into economic
terms. Well, researchers have estimated prices for what the environment
does for humans; they call this
ecosystem services
. Thus a wetland acts to
control flooding near a stream, which saves people's homes, and this may
be worth $250,000 in a given region. The economists estimate and then
add up all the various benefits (or services) accomplished by the environ-
ment. Figuring values for seventeen ecosystem functions for sixteen biomes,
Costanza et al. (1997) estimate that for the entire earth, the estimated value
of ecosystem services is about $33 trillion per year. As a reference point,
the authors note that annual global gross domestic product (that is, all
the money that exchanged hands for goods and services) was $18 trillion.
Thus the environment provides far more valuable services than we provide
ourselves.
Agroecology is an interrelated system that encompasses many ecologi-
cal concepts within an agricultural context (Altieri 1987) and suggests that
ecological principles be used to guide farm management (Gliessman 1998).
Rather than divide each component into separate parts, the goal of agro-
ecology is to look at a farm as an entire working system-awhole ecological
unit that also acknowledges social, ethical, and economic influences as well
(Francis et al. 2003). This is particularly appropriate for organic farming,
as management goals include long-term crop rotation, diversity, and inter-
actions among plants, soils, insects, worms, and other key members of the
community. Energy, water, and nutrient processes all occur independently
and in unison over time, and if diversity flourishes, succession occurs so that
a farm is constantly evolving toward a more complex biological state (Altieri
1987). Organic farms seeking this diverse, interactive approach will reach a
high level of complexity that should benefit the natural ecosystem and the
surrounding rural landscape. Organic farms provide enhanced ecosystem
services, although no economic value is currently awarded for these efforts
(Cacek and Langner 1986).
Björklund et al. (1999) uses the agricultural landscape of Sweden as an
example to show that as agricultural production has industrialized and
become more specialized over the past forty years, ecosystem services have
declined. Altieri (1999) notes that biodiversity is part of ecological services
that can lead to self-sustaining soil fertility and crop productivity - if di-
versified, low-input farming methods are used. In other words, industrial
agriculture reduces ecological processes that support rural landscapes, and
society as a whole must pay for this environmental deterioration. But con-
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