Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
essential to mitigate and adapt to climate change, whereas policies to mitigate and adapt
to climate change can themselves be tools to improve food security and reduce poverty.
This approach differs from much of the current thinking in taking an integrated,
holistic, systems approach to dealing with the nexus of climate, agriculture, and poverty.
Failure to consider the entire system—as, for example, by crop scientists focusing on
increasing yield without regard for environmental constraints and changes, or by natu-
ral and environmental scientists ignoring hunger and nutrition in their quest to reduce
agriculture's environmental damage—will lead to ineffective research, ill-informed pol-
icies, and less than optimal outcomes.
Agriculture will better support climate goals to the extent that positive and negative exter-
nalities are internalized by market participants. That is, producers and consumers should
reap the benefits or bear the costs, respectively, that they impose on others who are not party
to the transaction. This is essential not only as part of meeting current obligations toward
improving countries' environmental standards, but also to ensure that agriculture can sus-
tainably meet the food security needs of current and future generations. The “polluter pays”
principle (PPP) imposes a cost on those doing something contrary to public interest as
determined by government policy. Providing “payments for environmental services” (PES)
rewards those whose actions promote a larger public good. Together PPP and PES form a
continuum we refer to as full-costing. Although government is the only organization likely
to be involved in PPP, nongovernmental organizations have also established networks to
facilitate PES. There are different approaches to internalization, such as taxes and subsidies,
creating markets for environmental services, and assigning Coasian property rights.
This approach has deliberate conceptual biases. It takes an explicitly anthropocen-
tric viewpoint: climate change matters only insofar as human welfare is affected, either
today or in the future. It follows the Brundtland Commission's definition of sustain-
ability: Processes are sustainable if they meet the needs of current generations without
weakening the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Substitution between
natural and human-made resources is also permitted in order to achieve this. After this
brief introduction of the issues, the second section explores these complementarities
between climate change, agriculture, and poverty in detail. The third section examines
the relationship between economic growth and the environment. The fourth section
discusses the practical application of full costing and considers how it may be used to
generate multiple wins. The fifth concludes the chapter.
Exploring Complementarities
Climate Change Impacts Food Security and Poverty
How does climate change impact agriculture? The effects of climate change on agricul-
ture, food security, poverty, and indeed all of humanity may work subtly and gradually
until their combined weight reaches a tipping point, releasing a torrent of irreversible
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