Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
with methane-consuming microbial communities to stimulate greater removal of
atmospheric methane, a potent greenhouse gas (Levine et al. 2011). Another pos-
sibility is to manage noncrop areas in agricultural landscapes to support the natural
enemies of agricultural pests, thereby reducing the need for chemical pest control
(Landis et al. 2000). The viability of this strategy hinges on the opportunity cost
of not growing crops (Zhang et al. 2010), which in turn depends on land produc-
tivity and crop prices. A third possibility is improvement of perennial grain crops
such as wheat, so that grain production can be maintained while cycling nutrients
and sequestering carbon in deep perennial root systems. This could enhance soil
organic matter and reduce greenhouse gas emissions (DeHaan et al. 2005), though
great strides remain for perennial grains to become competitive with current sys-
tems (Weir 2012). And a fourth is to manage nitrogen fertilizer more precisely to
reduce emissions of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, using better estimators of
fertilizer need, precision or on-the-go fertilizer application, or other emerging tech-
nologies (Liu et al. 2006, Millar et al. 2010).
Policy design is the second key to enhanced ecosystem services from agroeco-
systems. The contingent valuation survey research summarized above suggests that
the public (at least in Michigan) is willing to pay what it would cost for farm-
ers to adopt practices that improve water quality and climate. This evidence that
the public is open to such a policy justifies research into the design of programs.
Viable programs must tackle thorny problems, such as (1) how to monitor invis-
ible management changes like lower fertilizer rates, and (2) how to balance the
cost-effective provision of
additional
services desired by taxpayers with fairness
in rewarding farmers (some who were practicing good stewardship without pay-
ment). Developing viable programs requires a sound understanding of why farmers
adopt changed practices (Swinton et al. 2015, Chapter 13 in this volume). One
way forward may be to target certain high-benefit practices. For example, reducing
fertilizer application reduces nitrate and phosphorus movement to water as well as
nitrous oxide emissions to the atmosphere, so a payment motivated by demand-side
desire for fewer eutrophic lakes may generate reduce greenhouse gas emissions at
no added cost (Reeling and Gramig 2012).
Summary
Evidence from economic research related to the KBS LTER indicates the potential
for crop farming to be managed for higher levels of nonfood services. For example,
crop management systems affect greenhouse gas fluxes and water-borne nutrients,
which affect climate- and water-quality-regulating services. Land use and cover
affect the abundance of natural enemies of crop pests, affecting the biocontrol regu-
lating service.
Economic values of these and other ecosystem services have been calculated
using both supply-side and demand-side approaches. KBS LTER research has used
land prices and recreational hunting travel costs to estimate the values of recre-
ational and provisioning services. The costs of supplying enhanced services by
modifying crop management have been estimated using three methods. Where clear
