Measuring environmental incomes beyond standard national and ecosystem accounting frameworks: testing and comparing the agroforestry Accounting System in a holm oak dehesa case study in Andalusia-Spain

The standard System of National Accounts (SNA) omits the costs of the environmental inputs from nature and the environmental fixed asset degradation from the national/sub-national natural working landscapes. The United Nations Statistic Division (UNSD) is currently drafting the standardization of the Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (EEA), as part of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA). The EEA- aims to mitigate some of the limitations of the SNA by extending the concept of economic activity and explicitly incorporating ecosystem services and environmental assets provided by nature in the estimates of net value added, adjusted according to the costs of the environmental inputs consumed and the environmental fixed asset degradations of ecosystem. However, the NVAad proposed in the ongoing draft of the EEA is inconsistent in that it omits the manufactured costs of the public economic activities of the new government institutional sub-sector of the ecosystem trustee. In addition, the ongoing methodological guidelines of the EEA do not propose to estimate the environmental income. This implies that there is not a single indicator that integrates the ecosystem services obtained and the evolution of the environmental assets in the natural working landscapes in which the private and public activities are valued. The objective of this research is to discuss conceptually and compare the measurements of ecosystem services and environmental incomes in the extended Agroforestry Accounting System (AAS), and in refined versions of the official SNA and the ongoing EEA methodologies, through a case study of privately-owned holm oak dehesas working landscapes in Andalusia-Spain. This comparison shows that the refined SNA and the refined EEA in their current state of development do not allow the complete visualization of the environmental income contribution to the total income of the natural working landscapes. We also discuss the advances provided by the AAS extended accounting methodology that would be relevant for the EEA next improvements.     

Rural household incomes and land grabbing in Cambodia

This paper empirically quantifies environmentally augmented rural household incomes in Cambodia and analyzes how economic land concessions (ELCs) affect such incomes. Data is derived from a structured survey of 600 randomly selected households in 15 villages in three study sites in Cambodia, where local livelihoods are highly reliant on access to land and natural resources, supported by qualitative data from focus group discussions. Gini coefficient decomposition, multiple regression models, and propensity score matching (PSM) models were employed to analyze the composition of income portfolios, determinants of major income sources, and the impacts of land grabbing on incomes. Results documented high reliance on environmental income (32–35% of total household income) and farm income (51–53%) across income quartiles; demonstrated the variation in product composition across quartiles and the contribution of each major product to income inequality; and identified the main household characteristics influencing absolute and relative incomes. ELCs were found to consistently have negative impacts on household total income, environmental income, size of available cultivable land and livestock holdings, and increasing the distance to forests. The total household annual income subjects to ELCs were estimated to decrease by 15–19%. While providing some employment opportunities, we find no evidence of positive income effects of ELCs on households in the areas where ELCs are located.     

Exploring the effect of land use on ecosystem services: The distributive issues

The current debate of ecosystem services has focused more on monetary valuation methods and payments for environmental services (PES) then on the classic economic analysis (i.e. assumptions regarding: sustainability, justice and efficiency). This paper examines, taking into consideration ecosystem services, income distribution from different land uses to stakeholders. We study the Portuguese common land ecosystem, which is characterized as having a wide range of ecosystem services. Allowing that all the benefits can be translated into economic value, we estimated the total economic value (TEV) associated with these territories on 5 different land use situations: forest, shrubland, water bodies, mountain agriculture and other uses, and analyzed the current institutional arrangements around these territories. We found that the distribution of the benefits of different land uses is relatively inequality. The results showed that the contemporary institutional arrangements of wealth distribution ensure a relatively fair distribution insider of system; however this institutional arrangement is unable to ensure equitable distribution of wealth by external stakeholders. We can conclude that different types of land use provide a very asymmetric distribution of income by different groups of humans: land owners; citizens of a country, and residents of Earth.     

Adaptation of Agroforestry Systems in South-Eastern Mexico through Integration of Farmer and Bioeconomic Evaluations

Agroforestry systems have been promoted as sustainable land-use systems for regions where shifting agriculture is the traditional predominant land-use. Although environmentally sustainable, agroforestry systems require investment to establish that may affect their economic sustainability. In the southern Yucatan Peninsula 47 agroforestry plots of two timber and 10 fruit tree species were established with 22 farmers in three communities covering two rainfall zones and five soil types. Some fruit trees had wide adaptability to different soil, rainfall and management conditions, e.g. Manilkara zapota; others were restricted to the best soil, rainfall management conditions, e.g. Persea americana. The Meliaceae timber trees responded little to rainfall and soil, but stem borer attack was markedly lower in less intensively managed systems. Level of system maintenance greatly affected costs, but also opportunities for intercropping and obtaining immediate income. All levels of managements had negative net present value (NPV) for the three-year establishment phase, but so does traditional maize production. Farmers preferred to inter-crop their agroforestry systems, but were often limited by site quality. Determining sustainable agroforestry options for farmers requires multiple decisions related to species adaptability to the site, farmer production objectives and farmer capacity to invest in different management strategies. One production technology did not fit all.     

Leveling the field for biofuels: comparing the economic and environmental impacts of biofuel and other export crops in Malawi

Biofuels often raise the specter of food insecurity, water resource depletion, and greenhouse gas emissions from land clearing. These concerns underpin the “sustainability criteria” governing access to European biofuel markets. However, it is unclear if producing biofuels in low‐income countries does exacerbate poverty and food insecurity, and moreover, whether the sustainability criteria should apply to all agricultural exports entering European markets. We develop an integrated modeling framework to simultaneously assess the economic and environmental impacts of producing biofuels in Malawi. We incorporate the effects of land use change on crop water use, and the opportunity costs of using scarce resources for biofuels instead of other crops. We find that biofuel production reduces poverty and food insecurity by raising household incomes. Irrigated outgrower schemes, rather than estate farms, lead to better economic outcomes, fewer emissions, and similar water requirements. Nevertheless, to gain access to European markets, Malawi would need to reduce emissions from ethanol plants. We find that biofuels’ economic and emissions outcomes are generally preferable to tobacco or soybeans. We conclude that the sustainability criteria encourage more sustainable biofuel production in countries like Malawi, but are perhaps overly biased against biofuels since other export crops raise similar concerns about food security and environmental impacts.     

Stated values and reminders of substitute goods: Testing for framing effects with choice modelling

Choice modelling, a non-market valuation technique, is used to explore framing issues in the context of environmental valuations. Choice modelling appears to have promise in simultaneously valuing a pool of substitute amenities and goods. Describing choices according to component attributes can also help to frame choices according to a number of trade-offs. The statistical information available helps to determine where framing effects have occurred. Three choice modelling experiments were reviewed to show that framing effects may be more widespread in non-market valuation studies than is commonly thought.     

果园生草复合种养循环模式效应分析基于云南泸西县果园比较研究

目的 探讨果园生草复合种养循环模式的经济与生态环境综合效应,促进果园生草模式的多元应用。方法 文章通过实地调研获取2019年云南省泸西县果园生产数据,运用生态循环理论,系统分析果—草—畜（羊）复合种养循环模式,并利用生态系统价值评估模型测算复合种养和清耕种植两种模式的生态系统服务价值,对比两种模式的经济与生态环境的综合效应。结果 在经济效益上,复合种养模式比清耕种植模式节约化肥6 496元/hm²、农药426元/hm²,分别降低肥料成本18%,农药成本19%;同时,果园生草替代外购饲料减少饲料成本1.956 0万元/hm²,提高经济效益4.439 9万元/hm²。生态效应上,复合种养模式增加生态系统服务价值32%,通过减少化肥及农药投入降低环境成本33%,由此果园综合效应提高4.998 2万元/hm²。结论 果园生草复合种养循环模式将果业、草业、畜牧业有机融合,实现了农业资源高效利用,同时节肥、节药、节饲效果显著,是一种生态与经济协调发展的果园生态循环模式。     

A generalized method for valuing agricultural farms under uncertainty

The opacity of the farm market means that valuations are based primarily on expert estimates rather than on actual transaction prices. The valuation method based on the two cumulative distribution functions (VMTCDF), created by Ballestero (1971), improves the synthetic method based on estimating the market value of an asset by establishing a proportional relation between the asset and one external variable. However, in most cases the expert must consider multiple external variables. This paper proposes a definitive extension to k indexes with a methodology particularly applicable to the field of valuation of non-market goods or markets where little information is available as may be the case with the valuation of agricultural land. The contribution is illustrated with an empirical example.     

Does willingness to pay increase with the number and strictness of sustainability labels?

Labels signaling sustainable product attributes are gaining importance, although uncertainty concerning the environmental, micro‐ and macroeconomic benefits of such labels persist. One of the questions still incompletely answered is whether Willingness To Pay (WTP) varies with a gradually increasing number of labels on a food product. In order to answer this question, we conducted a laboratory experiment with 191 student respondents, testing consumer valuations of different labeling strategies. Using the Becker‐DeGroot‐Marschak mechanism, WTP for 15 food products was measured. The products were endowed with up to six different sustainability labels, such that each grocery item was available in eight product versions. For perishable, nonperishable, and plant‐based products, the results indicate that participants are prone to allocating WTP‐premiums to labeled products, more than to unlabeled products. For animal products, however, labels do not influence WTP significantly. Furthermore, the premiums do not vary with an increasing number of labels, irrespective of whether the labels signal substitute or complementary sustainability information. The results are not entirely in line with normative notions of magnitude variation, but rather with the behavioral economic concept of embedding effects.     

Towards productive landscapes: Trade-offs in tree-cover and income across a matrix of smallholder agricultural land-use systems

One of the main causes of tropical forest loss is conversion to agriculture, which is constantly increasing as a dominant land cover in the tropics. The loss of forests greatly affects biodiversity and ecosystem services. This paper assesses the economic return from increasing tree cover in agricultural landscapes in two tropical locations, West Java, Indonesia and eastern Bangladesh. Agroforestry systems are compared with subsistence seasonal food-crop-based agricultural systems. Data were collected through rapid rural appraisal, field observation, focus groups and semi-structured interviews of farm households. The inclusion of agroforestry tree crops in seasonal agriculture improved the systems’ overall economic performance (net present value), even when it reduced understorey crop production. However, seasonal agriculture has higher income per unit of land area used for crop cultivation compared with the tree establishment and development phase of agroforestry farms. Thus, there is a trade-off between short-term loss of agricultural income and longer-term economic gain from planting trees in farmland. For resource-poor farmers to implement this change, institutional support is needed to improve their knowledge and skills with this unfamiliar form of land management, sufficient capital for the initial investment, and an increase in the security of land tenure.     

Assessment of land use and land cover changes and valuation of carbon stocks in the Sergipe semiarid region,Brazil: 1992–2030

The semiarid region in the state of Sergipe, Brazil, approximately 11,000 km², has experienced high deforestation rates in the last decades, which ultimately contribute to global climatic changes. The valuation of ecosystem services of CO₂ sequestration can support definition of environmental policies to decrease deforestation in that region. This study aimed to assess land use and land cover changes in the Sergipe semiarid region between 1992 and 2017 by applying remotely sensed data and technics; simulate the land use and land cover changes between 2017 and 2030 by applying a cellular automaton model, by assuming current land use trends (Business as Usual – BAU) as a reference scenario, and a more conservative scenario (Protected Forest – PF), in which was assumed an effective enforcement of the Brazilian Forest Code established in 2012; simulate the carbon stocks by 2017 assuming the BAU and PF scenarios by 2030, and estimate the Carbon balance between the 2030 and 2017 scenarios; and estimate the economic valuation of carbon emission and sequestration by using the InVEST software. The results showed that agriculture (cropped lands) was main driver of the landscape changes in the study area, which increased 14% by 2017, a net increase of 1494.45 km². The results showed that the total Carbon emissions would reach 736,900 Mg CO₂-eq by assuming the BAU scenario, which would increase the cost of opportunity up to US$ 17.7 million and a social carbon cost varying between US$ 10.3 and US$ 30.2 million. The restoration of the permanent preservation areas could contribute to increase Carbon sequestration up to 481,900 Mg CO₂-eq by 2030, which is equivalent cost of US$ 11.6 million. The natural landscape in the Sergipe semiarid region was strongly affected by deforestation activities occurred between 1992 and 2017. It requires, therefore, effective actions to support and promote restoration of degraded areas. The forested areas within the Sergipe semiarid region were the most affected type of vegetation because of expansion of agricultural fields soil exposures (Exposed Land). Environmental assessments based on scenarios and economic valuations can provide crucial information to support policy and decision makers to improve strategies for environmental management and conservation.     

Responses to climate change and farming policies by rural communities in northern China: A report on field observation and farmers’ perception in dryland north Shaanxi and Ningxia

To address land degradation and rural poverty the Chinese government has put in place a series of land conversion programmes in the Loess Plateau area in northern China. In addition to problems arising from unsustainable land use, water resource availability driven in part by climatic forcing is also a threat to livelihoods in this region. To understand climate impacts on farming practice in poor areas of China, field observation and village reconnaissance took place in the summer of 2009 in three selected counties of Shaanxi and Ningxia Province, northern China. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with householders in rural communities aiming to explore the impacts of recent climate and environmental changes and the role of land management practices on individual and community livelihood incomes as well as individual understanding and engagement with these concepts. The findings were complemented with secondary agricultural, economic and climatic data from the study regions. Respondents argued that land conversion programmes improved income potential, sustainability of livestock grazing and environmental quality in the region. However, water availability was thought to increasingly limit agriculture and human wellbeing in some of the regions with water resources becoming notably scarcer. Understanding of climate change as a concept varied amongst farmers potentially hampering the ability to adapt existing farming practices to maximise livelihood incomes sustainably. Positive effects of the government's land management schemes were unevenly distributed within villages and amongst regions, often linked to a lack of knowledge transfer and shared resources resulting in marginalised households and/or communities. Off-farm labour (in many cases relating to young adult rural to urban migration) appears a crucial source of income for households in the study region. Respondents in Ningxia expressed reservations about the future prospect of productive farming if the water availability continued to diminish.     

A real options model to assess the role of flexibility in forestry and agroforestry adoption and disadoption in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley

Efforts to restore the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley's forests have not achieved desired levels of ecosystem services production. We examined how the variability of returns and the flexibility to change or postpone decisions (option value) affects the economic potential of forestry and agroforestry systems to keep private land in production while still providing ecosystem services. A real options analysis examined the impact of flexibility in decision making under agriculture, forestry, and agroforestry and demonstrated that adoption of forestry or agroforestry systems is less feasible than would be predicted by deterministic capital budgeting models.     

Maize production and environmental costs: Resource evaluation and strategic land use planning for food security in northern Ghana by means of coupled emergy and data envelopment analysis

This paper applies an integrated methodology which is constituted of the following: (i) the Emergy-Data Envelopment Analysis (EM-DEA), (ii) environmental Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA), (iii) Value Chain Analysis (VCA), and (iv) Sustainability Balanced Scorecard (SBSC) approaches, -to support multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) for strategic agricultural land use planning, which could contribute to improve food security in northern Ghana. Five scenarios of land use and resource management practices for maize production were modelled. The business-as-usual scenario was based on primary data, which were collected using semi-structured questionnaires administered to 56 small-scale maize farmers through personal interviews. The dominant land use was characterised by an external input ≤12 kg/ha/yr inorganic fertilizer with/without the addition of manure in rainfed maize systems. The project scenarios were based on APSIM simulations of maize yield response to 0, 20, 50 and 100 kg/ha/yr urea dosages, with/without supplemental irrigation. The scenarios were dubbed as follows: (1) no/low input systems were denoted by Extensive0, Extensive12, and Intercrop20, and (2) moderate/high input systems were denoted by Intensive50, and Intensive100. The EM-DEA approach was used to assess the resource use efficiency (RUE) and sustainability in maize production systems, Ghana. The measured RUE and sustainability were used as a proxy for further analyses by applying the environmental CBA and VCA approaches to calculate: (a) the environmental costs of producing maize, i.e. resource use measured as total emergy (U), and (b) benefits from the yielded maize, i.e. (b i) food provision from grain measured in kcal/yr, and (b ii) potential electricity (bioenergy) which could be generated from residue measured in MWh/yr. The information which was derived from the applications of the EM-DEA, CBA and VCA approaches was aggregated by applying the SBSC approach to do a sustainability appraisal of the scenarios. The results show that, when labour and services are included in the assessment of RUE and sustainability, Intercrop20 and Intensive50 achieved greater marginal yield, better RUE, sustainability and appraisal score. The same scenarios caused lesser impacts in terms of expansion of area cultivated compared to Extensive0 and Extensive12. Meanwhile the impacts of Intercrop20 and Intensive50 in terms of ecotoxicity, emissions, and demand for resources (energy, materials, labour and services) were lesser compared to Intensive100. The implications of the various scenarios are discussed. The environmental performance of the scenarios are compared to maize production systems in other developing regions in order to put this study within a broader context. We conclude that, the EM-DEA approach is useful for assessing RUE and sustainability of agricultural production systems at farm and regional scales, as well as in connecting the management planning level and regional development considerations.     

Variations in ecosystem services in response to paddy expansion in the Sanjiang Plain,Northeast China

The ecosystem of the Sanjiang Plain in China has dramatically changed in the past four decades. This study investigated the history of paddy field expansion in the Sanjiang Plain and discovered the ecosystem service variations in response to paddy expansion. Integrating a series of Landsat images, we obtained the paddy expansion history from 1976 to 2015. Then, we calculated ecosystem service values (ESVs) to estimate the ecosystem service variations caused by paddy expansion in the Sanjiang Plain. The results indicate that the paddy area increased from 404,789–2,598,449 ha during 1976–2015, leading to a decline in the total ecosystem service values by 11288.04 million dollars. The largest decline in ESVs in response to paddy expansion was caused by wetland reclamation (9998.54 million dollars). Apart from agricultural products and gas regulation functions, the ESVs provided by other functions all showed a declining trend. Paddy expansion in the Sanjiang Plain increased agricultural product function at the expense of the decline of other functions. In future management practices, the rational allocation of water resources and paddy distribution are necessary in order to achieve sustainable development of both water resources and agricultural production. Some suggestions including coculture systems, restoring habitats for aquatic species, farm management that fosters biodiversity in paddy fields are provided for future sustainability.     

吉林省湿地生态系统服务价值评估

为科学评估吉林省湿地生态系统最终服务价值,在遥感调查和实地调查的基础上,综合运用生态经济学方法,针对吉林省湿地特点建立吉林省湿地生态系统服务价值指标体系和方法体系,以小班为单位估算吉林省湿地生态系统服务价值。结果显示,吉林省湿地生态系统服务总价值为2 161.93亿元,湿地提供的平均价值为12.71万元/hm~2,其中供给服务功能的价值为436.46亿元,占总价值的20.19%,调节服务功能价值为1 116.64亿元,占总价值的51.65%,支持服务功能价值为417.64亿元,占总价值的19.32%,文化服务功能价值为191.19亿元,占总价值的8.84%,反映出吉林省湿地在发挥直接经济效益的同时,还兼具巨大的生态效益和社会效益。     

Valuing soil conservation benefits of agroforestry: contour hedgerows in the Eastern Visayas,Philippines

Trees can be considered as investments made by economic agents to prevent depreciation of natural assets such as stocks of top soil and water In agroforestry systems farmers use trees in this manner by deliberately combining them with agricultural crops on the same unit of land. Although advocates of agroforestry have asserted that soil conservation is one of its primary benefits, empirical estimates of these benefits have been lacking due to temporal and spatial complexity of agroforestry systems and the nonmarket aspect of soil capital assets. This study designs and applies a bio-economic framework for valuing the soil conservation benefits of agroforestry. The framework is tested with econometric analysis of data from surveys of households in Eastern Visayas. Philippines, where USAID/Government of Philippines introduced contour hedgerow agroforestry in 1983. By constructing a weighted soil quality index that also incorporates measures of soil fertility, texture and color in addition to erosion, we extend previous economic studies of soil resources. This index is regressed on a variety of farming and site specific bio-physical variables. Next, we use a Cobb-Douglas profit function to directly relate agricultural profits and soil quality. Thus, the value of soil conservation is measured as a quasi-rent differential or the share of producer surplus associated with a change in soil quality. Because this framework assumes the existence of markets, the assumption is tested by analysing the statistical significance of consumption side variables, e.g., number of household members, on production side variables, e.g., profits. Instrumental variables are used to handle the endogeneity of the soil index in the profit equation. Seemingly unrelatedregression (SUR) analysis is used to accommodate correlation of errors across the soil and profit equations. Regression results reveal the importance of agroforestry intensity, private ownership, land fragmentation, and familiarity with soil conservation as positive covariates of soil quality. Analysis of production data indicate the importance of market prices, education, farming experience, farm size, topography, and soil quality as positive covariates of household profits Investments in agroforestry to improve or maintain soil capital can increased annual agricultural profits by US$53 for the typical household, which is 6% of total income. However, there are significant up-front costs. Given that small farmers in tropical uplands are important players in the management of deteriorating soil and forest resources, policy makers may want to consider supporting farmers in the early years of agroforestry adoption.     

Ranking farms with a composite indicator of sustainability

The assessment of sustainability at farm level has been growing in popularity over the last few years. This article contributes to this line of research by building up composite indicators for different facets—social, economic, environmental, and global—of farm sustainability using a methodological approach that combines data envelopment analysis (DEA) and multicriteria decision making (MCDM) methods, and assigns common weights to each individual sustainability indicator. This approach is applied to a database of 163 farms located in the Campos County, a region belonging to the dry lands of the Spanish Northern Plateau, using 12 individual indicators of sustainability. Our findings show that both economic and environmental composite sustainability indicators are positively correlated, but that this is not the case for the social indicator. We also check the influence of a set of variables on farm sustainability using bootstrapping statistical techniques, and showing that increasing farm size, membership in agricultural cooperatives and farmers’ medium and upper agricultural‐specific technical education, all exert a significant positive influence on sustainability. These results provide clues for policy makers that intend to design sustainability‐increasing structural agricultural policies.     

Economic Growth,Globalisation and Beer Consumption

We analyse the evolution of beer consumption between countries and over time. Historically, there have been major changes in beer consumption in the world. In recent times, per capita consumption has decreased in traditional beer drinking countries while it increased strongly in emerging economies. Recently, China has overtaken the US as the largest beer economy. A quantitative empirical analysis studies the relationships among economic growth, globalisation and beer consumption. The relationship between income and beer consumption has an inverse U‐shape. Beer consumption initially increases with rising incomes; but at higher levels of income beer consumption falls. Increased globalisation has contributed to a convergence in alcohol consumption patterns across countries. In countries that were originally beer drinking countries, the share of beer in total alcohol consumption reduced, while this is not the case in countries which traditionally drank mostly wine or spirits.     

Economic evaluation of ecosystem goods and services under different landscape management scenarios

Human-induced changes in the natural environment are affecting the provision of ecosystem goods and services (EGS). Land use plans rarely include the value of public ecosystem services such as climate regulation and biodiversity due to difficulties in valuing these services. In this study, we assessed total economic value for five important ecosystem goods and services under five future land-use scenarios using varying levels of costs, prices and discount rates. Results indicated that at higher discount rates normally applied to commercial activities, and assuming the current prices for goods and services, net present value (NPV) was highest for landscape management scenarios aimed at maximising agricultural production. Potential income from services such as carbon and biodiversity does not offset projected income lost from agriculture due to land-use changes. At higher discount rates, NPV was negative for the two scenarios aimed at enhancing the longer term ecological sustainability of the landscape. These results indicate that income from carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation would need to be considerably higher than current levels in order to justify focusing management of this landscape on ecological outcomes. At lower discount rates (at levels normally associated with public investments), the more ecologically appropriate ‘mosaic farming system’ had the highest NPV, indicating that this type of system might be attractive for investors interested in longer term return horizons or wider public benefits. Higher income from carbon or biodiversity, or increased return from timber by using high value tree species, could potentially make more ecologically appropriate systems profitable at higher discount rates.