An analytical framework to link governance, agricultural production practices, and the provision of ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes

Pasture-based livestock systems, often located in High Value Nature farmland areas, hold the greatest potential to deliver public goods across European agricultural systems. They play an important role in preserving agricultural landscapes, farmland biodiversity, cultural heritage, and in sustaining rural development. However, many of these functions are ignored in evaluation frameworks because public goods do not have market price and are often ignored in policy design, so farmers do not get the appropriate incentives to provide them. Different conceptual frameworks can be utilized to evaluate the multiple functions or services of these systems: Multifunctional Agriculture, Ecosystem Services, and Total Economic Value. We analyze the common characteristics of these concepts (e.g. they place human benefits and societal demands at the core of their definitions), their specificities (e.g. use of different units of analysis and spatial-temporal scales), and how they can be embedded in the wider concept of sustainability. Finally, we illustrate how the different concepts can be combined to evaluate pasture-based livestock farming systems from a socio-cultural and economic perspective. The public goods (ecosystem services) provided by representative case studies in Mediterranean and Nordic regions are quantified (also in monetary terms) under different environmental/policy scenarios. The results show that there is a clear underestimation of the socio-cultural and economic values of ecosystem services provided by these farming systems. They also show that the social welfare loss linked to further abandonment of livestock farming, and the associated environmental degradation, is very large. From a societal perspective, it is necessary to jointly measure the biophysical, socio-cultural and monetary values of ecosystem services (market and nonmarket) in order to promote the sustainability of pasture-based livestock systems.

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A global review of arthropod-mediated ecosystem-services in Vaccinium berry agroecosystems

Terrestrial Arthropod Reviews ◽

10.1163/18749836-06041074 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 41-78 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

Matthew S. Jones ◽

Henri Vanhanen ◽

Rainer Peltola ◽

Frank Drummond

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Native Species ◽

Evolutionary History ◽

Insect Pest ◽

Agricultural Pests ◽

Fruit Crops ◽

Beneficial Arthropods ◽

Pollination Services ◽

Arthropod Fauna ◽

Production Practices

Native beneficial arthropods, including bees, predators, and parasitoids, provide valuable ecosystem services, which help to maintain agricultural productivity and reduce the need for pesticide inputs.Vacciniumberry species are somewhat unique compared to many of the world’s fruit crops in that, up until recently, most of the harvesting and culture of species for food occurred in the geographic regions of their origin. This suggests that insects involved in many of the ecosystem services for these berries are native species that have a shared co-evolutionary history. Due to the shared phylogenetic origins of theVacciniumspp. agroecosystems, the shared need for efficient pollination, and a number of shared agricultural pests, the potential exists for research from these related systems to closely apply to agroecosystems within the same genus. This review brings together research regarding arthropod-mediated ecosystem services from a number of prominentVacciniumagroecosystems worldwide. In total, thirty-nine ecosystem service studies are discussed. These studies quantified arthropod-mediated ecosystem services being provisioned toVacciniumagroecosystems. Additionally, thirty-nine surveys of arthropods closely associated and/or providing ecosystem services toVacciniumsystems are also reviewed. Studies took place almost exclusively in temperate regions with a heavy emphasis on insect pest biological control and pollination services. It is our hope that by synthesizing this body of literature, researchers and growers might be able to utilize research methods, results, and conservation recommendations despite differences in production practices and local arthropod fauna.

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Rethinking rehabilitation of salt-affected land: new perspectives from Australian experience

10.22541/au.163251852.24854531/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

John Leake ◽

Victor Squires ◽

S Shabala

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Agricultural Production ◽

Production Systems ◽

Concerted Effort ◽

Plant Soil ◽

Mechanistic Basis ◽

Australian Experience ◽

Evolution Of Ideas ◽

The Cost ◽

Agricultural Production Systems

Soil salinity is emerging as a major threat to the sustainability of modern agricultural production systems and, historically, land and water degradation due to salinity has defeated civilisations whenever the cost of remediation exceeded the benefits. This work discusses the complexity inherent in working with salinity, and the opportunities where salt damaged land and water is viewed as a resource. It takes a wider look at land and waterscapes, seeing them as systems that link damage and repair across time and space to bridge the divide between the main beneficiaries of ecosystem services and the main actors, farmers, and land managers. We first discuss the mechanistic basis of crop reduction by salinity and evolution of ideas about how to shape the plant-soil-water nexus. We then discuss the needs of farmers and other land users required for adequate planning and land management within the constraints of existing policy. Lastly, an approach that provides a new technical and economic tool for the remediation of land in several land use categories is presented. We conclude that a more concerted effort is required to turn payments for ecosystem services into a true market, accepted as such by the land managers, whose agency is essential so the ‘knowledge of what can be done can be transformed into benefits’. Achieving this will require a transformation in the paradigm of how natural resources are managed.

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The armadillos: from ecosystem services and online opinions to land use in agricultural landscapes

10.11606/t.91.2020.tde-05032020-173250 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Thiago Ferreira Rodrigues

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Agricultural Landscapes

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Complexity of ecosystem services in agricultural fields, in particular the biodiversity

Acta Agraria Debreceniensis ◽

10.34101/actaagrar/63/1833 ◽

2015 ◽

pp. 43-51

Author(s):

Ibolya Csíder

Keyword(s):

Complex System ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Soil Pollution ◽

Agricultural Production ◽

Biological Diversity ◽

Convention On Biological Diversity ◽

Agricultural Fields ◽

Uniform Definition ◽

Water And Soil Pollution ◽

Farmland Ecosystem

Since the Convention on Biological Diversity a lot of papers have been published how to measure and value biodiversity. In the last decades publications on agro-ecosystems become more frequent and play a significant role in the provision of ecosystem services. There is a uniform definition for biodiversity in general, however, in terms of agro-ecosystems and their services (including biodiversity) many weaknesses can be identified. The objective of this paper is to explore some of these problems with special regard to different definitions and terms and to the farmland ecosystem services. One solution could be to adopt a more complex system which has some ecological and environmental components (air, water and soil pollution) and also takes in to consideration the efficiency of agricultural production.

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A Historical Overview of Protected Agriculture in the State of Sinaloa, Mexico: Implications for Improving Rural Prosperity

Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education ◽

10.5191//jiaee.2019.26301 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 26 (3) ◽

pp. 7-26

Author(s):

Luis Flores ◽

M. Craig Edwards

Keyword(s):

Economic Development ◽

Technological Innovation ◽

Agricultural Production ◽

Agricultural Sector ◽

The State ◽

Tomato Production ◽

Use Of Resources ◽

Technological Advances ◽

Production Practices ◽

Societal Problems

Economic development is an important phenomenon that can positively impact societal problems such as poverty, lack of education, and insufficient infrastructure, among other ills. In this regard, technological advances are essential to making better use of resources. The agricultural sector is no exception. With the passage of time, advances in agriculture have allowed processes to be optimized, improving production practices and minimizing risks, by using innovative technologies (Schenkel, Finley, & Chumney, 2012). For this reason, the adoption and use of approaches to protected agricultural production grew steadily in the State of Sinaloa, Mexico during the last century and until today. Such technology assisted significantly in the economic development of the region. This inquiry sought to understand factors and forces that augmented expansion of protected agriculture, especially regarding tomato production, and its advantages compared to traditional systems, as experienced by producers in Sinaloa. Understanding such a phenomenon may provide important implications for improving the economies of similar contexts in need of economic development where agriculture is a viable sector. Keywords: economic development; protected agriculture; Sinaloa tomato industry; technological innovation

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Agriculture and Supporting Ecosystem Services: A Trade-off Analysis Using Open Data in Brazil

Sustainable Agriculture Research ◽

10.5539/sar.v9n1p1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 1

Author(s):

Ana Paula Dias Turetta ◽

Bruno Pedrosa ◽

Luca Eufemia ◽

Michelle Bonatti ◽

Stefan Sieber

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Service Provision ◽

Agricultural Production ◽

Methodological Approach ◽

Regional Scale ◽

Open Data ◽

Sustainable Land Use ◽

Production Region ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Agricultural Areas

Open data are important for adding legitimacy and transparency to public sciences. These data have also a potential to be used as a first approach for scientific investigation, such as spatial evaluation of ecosystem services. This paper presents a methodological approach to evaluate the trade-offs between agriculture and supporting ecosystem services based on spatial analysis and open data. The study area is an important agricultural production region in Bahia State, Brazil. The framework was able to establish the spatial interactions between agriculture and ecosystem service provision, while the regional scale was useful in supporting guidelines regarding sustainable land use for agricultural areas.

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Contributions of Urban Agro Ecological Agriculture to Ecosystem Services

International Journal of Urban Planning and Smart Cities ◽

10.4018/ijupsc.2021010101 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 1-16

Author(s):

José G. Vargas-Hernández ◽

Olga E. Domené-Painenao

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Environmental Sustainability ◽

Agricultural Production ◽

Food Systems ◽

Social Equity ◽

Empirical Literature ◽

Environmental Services ◽

Negative Effects ◽

The Social

This paper has the aim to analyze the implications of the transition of ecosystem services based on urban agro ecology. It advances on the debate over the negative effects of the traditional and industrial oriented agricultural production on the ecosystem services, food systems, climate change, etc. and analyses the principles, methods, and some practices that support the transition to urban agro ecology. The method employed is the analytical of the theoretical and empirical literature review. It concludes that a transition from traditional and industrial-oriented agriculture towards more urban agro ecology is inevitable to improve the ecological and environmental services, the economic efficiency, the social equity and justice, and the environmental sustainability of cities.

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