Abstract

Agricultural soils contribute to human welfare through their generation of manifold ecosystem services such as food security, water quality and climate regulation, but these are degraded by common farming practices. We have developed a roadmap for evaluating the contribution of both private- and public-good ecosystem services generated by agricultural soils to societal welfare. The approach considers the needs of decision-makers at different levels, from farmers to policy-makers. This we achieve through combining production functions-to quantify the impacts of alternative management practices on agricultural productivity and soil ecosystem services-with non-market valuation of changes in public-good ecosystem services and benefit-cost analysis. The results show that the net present value to society of implementing soil-friendly measures are substantial, but negative for farmers in our study region. Although we apply our roadmap to an intensive farming region in Sweden, we believe our results have broad applicability, because farmers do not usually account for the value of public-good ecosystem services. We therefore conclude that market outcomes are not likely to be generating optimal levels of soil ecosystem services from society's perspective. Innovative governance institutions are needed to resolve this market failure to safeguard the welfare of future generations.

Keywords

natural capital; soil carbon; policy; valuation; climate change; food security; nutrient retention; benefit-cost analysis

Published in

Sustainability
2019, Volume: 11, number: 19, article number: 5285
Publisher: MDPI

SLU Authors

• Brady, Mark

  • Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Lund University

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG15 Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
SDG2 End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture


UKÄ Subject classification

Agricultural Science
Economics


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/su11195285

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/102744