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Ecosystem Services
Agricultural ecosystems are explicitly managed to meet private objectives, primarily profitability from the sale of food, fuel and fiber products. Because these ecosystems are directly managed by humans, they are uniquely suited to generate ecosystem services that could meet other human needs for which markets may not exist. This KBS-LTER research area explores four themes:
- the suitability of agriculture to provide various ecosystem services,
- the willingness of farmers to provide nontraditional ecosystem services,
- the potential value of ecosystem services from and to agriculture, and
- policy designs to encourage farmers to provide a wider range of ecosystem services.
These themes are explored through three research thrusts, described below.
Ecosystem Services and Agriculture: Managed ecosystems, such as agriculture, are only beginning to be understood as potential providers of nonmarketed ecosystem services (Robertson and Swinton, 2005; Swinton et al., 2006; Zhang et al., 2007). With collaboration from ecological and social researchers around the nation, we are characterizing the ecosystem services linked to agriculture, challenges in their measurement and valuation, and policy designs to overcome those challenges in enhancing their provision (workshops on Valuation of Ecosystem Services in Agriculture, 2005, and Ecosystem Services from Working Lands: Cross-site LTER Research, 2007; guest-edited special issue of Ecological Economics, in progress, 2007).
Pest Predation by Natural Enemies: Natural enemies that control agricultural pests provide a regulating ecosystem service. It has value to farmers and consumers via crop yield protection and reduced need for chemical pest control. With the insect dynamics group at KBS-LTER, we are developing a spatial bioeconomic model of soybean aphid (Aphis glycines Matsumura) predation and population dynamics. This research is revealing the effect of natural enemies on economic thresholds for chemical pest control and the derived economic value of natural enemies. Spatial modeling is exploring the potential of policies to encourage provision of habitat for natural enemies.
Farmer Willingness to Provide Ecosystem Services: The potential for farmers to provide ecosystem services beyond food, fuel and fiber depends upon their attitudes and the knowledge and incentives that shape those attitudes. Technology and government policy play important roles whose farm-level effects need to be better understood. Through farmer focus groups and surveys, we are exploring farmers’ view of trade-offs and complementarities between the production of marketed products and such ecosystem services as carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat, and water quality regulation. Through surveys, we are examining the value to taxpayers of ecosystem services that can be provided by farmers.
Selected publications:
Robertson, G.P. and S.M. Swinton. 2005. Reconciling agricultural productivity and environmental integrity: A grand challenge for agriculture. Front. Ecol. Environ. 3:38-46.
Swinton, S.M., F. Lupi, G.P. Robertson and D.A. Landis. 2006. Ecosystem services from agriculture: Looking beyond the usual suspects. Amer. J. Agric. Econ. 88:1160-1166.
Zhang, W., T. H. Ricketts, C. Kremen, K. Carney, and S.M. Swinton. 2007. Ecosystem services and dis-services to agriculture. Ecol. Econ. In press.