Balancing Agricultural Productivity and Ecosystem Management
In March 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, Global Harvest Initiative and the Farm Foundation hosted a symposium of global experts to discuss agricultural productivity and the environment, specifically how to measure and track field-level impacts in a way that is meaningful for policymakers and markets. Several of the presentation addressed the question posed in this discussion – two are discussed here. Presentations and abstracts from the conference are available here, on the Farm Foundation website.
Tim Benton, the UK Champion for Global Food Security & Professor of Ecology at the University of Leeds said that they key to sustainable agriculture was “spatial planning” which matches agricultural production techniques with the right natural resource management practices for a given landscape – not just the individual farm. Landscapes extend beyond the boundaries of a single farm. GHI’s 2015 Global Agricultural Productivity Report® (pages 23-24) discusses how USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) employs this landscape approach, establishing conservation “districts” in which farmers could collaborate with one another and the NRCS to tailor their farming practices to their specific ecosystem.
Stephen Polasky, Regents Professor of Applied Economics and the University of Minnesota discussed the difference between how agricultural practices and ecosystem management practices are valued. He said that markets provide value for crop production, but not for carbon sequestration or water quality. To correct this imbalance, he recommends making a range of ecosystem management services available and educating farmers and producers on their options. It is critical to establish a market value for these goods and services with the help of public and private sector incentives.
For policymakers around the world, Total Factor Productivity (TFP) is a helpful tool for tracking their progress on managing the balance between the need for agricultural productivity and eco-system sustainability. TFP is the ratio of agricultural outputs (gross crop and livestock output) to inputs (land, labor, fertilizer, feed, machinery, and livestock) (see Figure 1, 2015 GAP Report®). TFP measures changes in the efficiency with which all inputs are transformed into outputs: as farmers use inputs more precisely and efficiently, use advanced genetics in crop and livestock, and adopt improved cultivation and livestock rearing practices, their output grows while using the same or even a reduced amount of inputs, helping to protect already stressed ecosystems.
الدكتور Margaret Zeigler
Balancing Agricultural Productivity and Ecosystem Management
In March 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, Global Harvest Initiative and the Farm Foundation hosted a symposium of global experts to discuss agricultural productivity and the environment, specifically how to measure and track field-level impacts in a way that is meaningful for policymakers and markets. Several of the presentation addressed the question posed in this discussion – two are discussed here. Presentations and abstracts from the conference are available here, on the Farm Foundation website.
Tim Benton, the UK Champion for Global Food Security & Professor of Ecology at the University of Leeds said that they key to sustainable agriculture was “spatial planning” which matches agricultural production techniques with the right natural resource management practices for a given landscape – not just the individual farm. Landscapes extend beyond the boundaries of a single farm. GHI’s 2015 Global Agricultural Productivity Report® (pages 23-24) discusses how USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) employs this landscape approach, establishing conservation “districts” in which farmers could collaborate with one another and the NRCS to tailor their farming practices to their specific ecosystem.
Stephen Polasky, Regents Professor of Applied Economics and the University of Minnesota discussed the difference between how agricultural practices and ecosystem management practices are valued. He said that markets provide value for crop production, but not for carbon sequestration or water quality. To correct this imbalance, he recommends making a range of ecosystem management services available and educating farmers and producers on their options. It is critical to establish a market value for these goods and services with the help of public and private sector incentives.
For policymakers around the world, Total Factor Productivity (TFP) is a helpful tool for tracking their progress on managing the balance between the need for agricultural productivity and eco-system sustainability. TFP is the ratio of agricultural outputs (gross crop and livestock output) to inputs (land, labor, fertilizer, feed, machinery, and livestock) (see Figure 1, 2015 GAP Report®). TFP measures changes in the efficiency with which all inputs are transformed into outputs: as farmers use inputs more precisely and efficiently, use advanced genetics in crop and livestock, and adopt improved cultivation and livestock rearing practices, their output grows while using the same or even a reduced amount of inputs, helping to protect already stressed ecosystems.