Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
(2011) has argued that in a populous world with greater scientific understand-
ing of off-farm emission effects, property rights should change so that farming
is subject to the same “polluter pays” principle as industry. Were that to occur,
farmers would be responsible for pollution mitigation costs for which they now
expect to be compensated. Given that most of the conservation technologies
discussed in this chapter would abate such pollution, voluntary adoption would
be more likely.
Apart from policy and market incentive programs, technological change offers
another potential avenue for a greater voluntary provision of ecosystem services
from agriculture. Conservation tillage in association with herbicide-tolerant, genet-
ically modified crops has been adopted in the United States chiefly because farm-
ers find it to be efficient and profitable. Arguably, this phenomenon has provided
important benefits via both reduced greenhouse gas emissions and reduced pesti-
cide runoff from farm fields (NRC 2010). However, these two benefits have come
with the potential for risks associated with gene release as well as perceived health
risks (Uzogara 2000), which has led to the banning of genetically modified crops
in Europe. The development of more win-win technologies that are profitable to
farmers while offering public benefits remains possible. Incentives to generate such
technologies could be enhanced by payment programs that would induce innova-
tion of environmental technologies for agriculture (Swinton and Casey 1999) or by
changes in property rights that hold farmers responsible for reducing the release
of excess agrochemicals and greenhouse gases from agricultural activities (Norris
et al. 2008).
Summary
Agricultural ecosystems are managed directly for human benefit. Farmers make
decisions with the knowledge and resources they command to meet their goals in
a complex, risky setting. Working ecosystems like agriculture are managed chiefly
to provide farm income, while producing food, fiber, and biofuels to meet human
needs. During the twentieth century, U.S. farmers became increasingly efficient
at producing food and fuel through more reliance on agrochemical inputs. Recent
calls for a rebalanced, more diverse mix of ecosystem services from agriculture
raise a fundamental question: What will induce farmers to adopt more environ-
mentally beneficial practices? By what avenues will they balance food, fiber, and
fuel production with ecosystem services like carbon sequestration, improved water
quality, and functional biodiversity?
Farmer adoption of new management practices depends on awareness, atti-
tudes, available resources, and incentives. Research with Michigan farmers indi-
cates that they are largely aware of the low-input systems studied at KBS LTER. Yet
few row-crop farmers have chosen to adopt these systems in their entirety. Focus
group interviews, experimental auctions, and a statewide mail survey suggest that
farmer reluctance to adopt low-input practices stems from a perception of lower
profitability and higher labor requirements. While no-till farming with conventional
fertilization was profitable and attractive for many farmers, reduced chemical inputs
