Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 7 • Number 21 • 30th November 2007

Pay Farmers for Providing Environmental Services, Says FAO

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Farmers provide the world with essential ecosystem services, such as carbon storage, flood control, clean water provision and biodiversity conservation. These services are undervalued by the market, and providing targeted economic incentives to farmers could safeguard the environment as well as fight global poverty, according to the 2007 edition of the State of Food and Agriculture report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Released on 15 November, the FAO report states that if subsidy and payment regimes, currently providing incentives for food, fiber and biofuel production, were overhauled to target environmental services, this could also play a hand in maintaining jobs and food resources.

“These services generate a benefit to somebody other than the person who produces them, but no compensation takes place for their provision, so they tend to be under-provided,” explained Gerald Nelson, co-author of the report.

“Ensuring appropriate incentives for [farmers] is essential,” said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf. He continued to say that farming has the potential to degrade the environment or to enhance it, “all depending on the decisions made by the more than two billion people whose livelihoods depend directly on crops, livestock, fisheries or forests.”

Additional resources

To access the report visit http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a1200e/a1200e00.htm

“Paying Farmers to Protect the Planet is the Future,” REUTERS, 16 November 2007; “New United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization Report Says Targeted Payments to Farmers Could Protect Environment and Address Climate Change and Water Supply Concerns,” GRAINNET, 16 November 2007; “Paying farmers to protect the environment?” FAO RELEASE, 15 November 2007.