Research Publications

The Environmental Benefits of Well-Managed Farmland

This report addresses the costs and benefits of different land-use patterns on the environment and how sound agricultural management practices may produce tangible environmental benefits. Various categories of land use - urban, agricultural and natural lands - affect water, soil and air quality, along with biodiversity in different and interconnected ways. While the costs of urban land use to the environment are well known, the benefits that agricultural land use may offer to the environment are less well documented. This review contends that well-managed farmland, using sound agricultural conservation practices, not only will neutralize many of the environmental problems caused in the past, but that positive environmental benefits - either in the form of good externalities or public goods - will be produced as a result. While the environmental costs of agriculture are easier to measure, the benefits produced by well-managed farmland are more difficult to ascertain yet not impossible to approximate. These benefits include improving the quality of water, air and soil, carbon sequestration, retaining and promoting biodiversity by working landscapes practices, producing fresh fruits, grains, vegetables, oils low in saturated fats, dairy, lean meat and other highly nutritious foods, raising land values by adopting conservation measures, and farmland amenities – a public good that has become increasingly significant and valuable, both to the urban population and to farmers. This report also reviews environmental indicators that have been proposed to track the health of agricultural land. By promoting the use of such environmental indicators, we hope that future policy measures - programs and subsidies - will be informed by a more accurate account of the environmental benefits of well-managed farmland.

http://www.aftresearch.org/research/resource/current/ebwmf/