AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT - Science for Agriculture and Rural Development in Low-income Countries - page 69

SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT
The relation between agriculture and environment is complex. Agricultural production
affects other land uses, directly via competition for land and water or indirectly via
inadequate management, leading to degradation and pollution of soil, water and
atmosphere.
Often it is the focus on short-term needs or economic gains and the disregard of
long-term impacts that underlie decisions leading to degradation and pollution; in
other cases, it is the lack of awareness or know-how that are to blame. This observation
is not new, but so far, solutions and pathways to move to more environmentally-
friendly production systems have not been very successful. However, by not only
focusing on environmental issues but also considering economic and social criteria,
a more harmonious picture of problems and possible solutions will emerge.
The MDGs provide a policy framework with well defined achievable targets.
With the prominent role of agriculture in achieving these goals we also need to
consider how the discussed environmental issues might interfere with these goals. In
Table 1, a short overview of how climate change soil and land degradation including
chemical pollution of soil and water and biodiversity are linked to the MDGs is
provided.
Looking for new economic incentives is essential when aiming at environmen-
tally-friendly production systems. Ecosystem services are the conditions and processes
through which natural ecosystems, and the species that make them up, sustain and
fulfill human life. They maintain biodiversity and the production of ecosystem goods,
such as forage, seafood, biofuels, timber, natural fiber, and many pharmaceuticals,
industrial products, and their precursors. In addition to the production of goods,
ecosystem services are the actual life-support functions, such as cleansing, recycling,
and renewal, in addition to conferring many intangible aesthetic and cultural benefits.
(Costanza 1997; Daily 1997). The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) classified
ecosystem services into four main types: provisioning, supporting, cultural, and
regulating services (see also the international assessment IAASTD, with focus on
agriculture; www.agassessment.org). Agricultural systems are typically managed to
maximizing provisioning services to provide food, but they require several other
supporting and regulating services to support production. Agriculture both depends
on ecosystem services and also generates them. Agricultural ecosystem services can
be grouped into three categories: services that directly support agricultural produc-
tion (such as maintaining fertile soils, nutrient cycling, pollination), services that
contribute directly to the quality of life of humans (such as cultural and aesthetic
values of the landscape) and services that contribute towards global life-supporting
functions (such as carbon sequestering, maintenance of biogeochemical cycles,
supply of fresh water, provision of wildlife habitats). Monetarizing these services is
part of the solution to more environmental-friendly production systems.