Towards a green economy Strategy Crop diversification Crop and country
Rice with pigeon pea, groundnut and blackgram in India (Kar et al. 2004). Variety of crops in Bangladesh (Rahman 2009).
Diversification into animal husbandry and horticulture
Variety of crops and animals in Africa (Seo 2010). Survey of crops and countries in Africa and South East Asia (Weinberger 2007).
Costs
US$ 41.8 million allocated to promoting crop diversification for a 5-year plan in Bangladesh. Empirical study shows reduced variable cost for diversified farmers of US$ 40/ farm (Jan. 1997 exchange rate).
In Kenya the production of snowpeas and French beans, require 600 and 500 labour days per ha, respectively. In Mexico, the horticultural sector required more than 20% of the total labour days within the agricultural sector.
Benefits
In India, intercropping of rice with pigeon pea, groundnut and blackgram approximately tripled the yield of crops (rice and alternative crops) vs. rice alone.
The impacts of climate change on farms diversified into animal husbandries range from 9% loss to 27% gain depending on climate scenarios.
Trends in revenues and profits after including additional costs of greening
In Bangladesh, similar net profits were earned by diversified and non diversified farmers; but positive environmental benefits accrued to the diversified farms.
Profits of farmers diversified into horticulture were consistently higher compared to non-diversified farmers (29% in Bangladesh to 497% in Kenya). Estimates show that integrated or diversified farms have the potential to become more profitable compared to non-integrated farms 50 years from now, in the context of climate change.
Table 5: Selected evidence on benefits and costs of agricultural diversification
including integrated pest and nutrient management, conservation tillage, agroforestry, aquaculture, water harvesting and livestock integration. The study covered 12.6 million farms, encompassing over 37 million hectares (3 per cent of the cultivated area in developing countries). All crops showed water use efficiency gains, with the highest improvement occurring in rain-fed crops. Carbon sequestration potential averaged 0.35tC/ ha/year. Of projects with pesticide data, 77 resulted in a decline in pesticide use by 71 per cent, while yields grew by 42 per cent. In another example, bio-dynamic farms recorded a 100 per cent increase in productivity per hectare due to the use of soil-fertility techniques such as compost application and the introduction of leguminous plants into the crop sequence (Dobbs and Smolik 1996; Drinkwater et al. 1998; Edwards 2007).
For small farms in Africa, where the use of synthetic inputs is low, converting to sustainable farming methods has increased yields and raised incomes. In a project involving 1,000 farmers in South Nyanza, Kenya, who were cultivating, on average, two hectares each, crop yields rose by 2-4 tonnes per hectare after an initial conversion period. In yet another case, the incomes of some 30,000 smallholders in Thika, Kenya rose by 50 per cent within three years after they switched to organic production (Hines and Pretty 2008).
A significant part of a farm’s production costs is linked to its energy inputs and organic agriculture tends to be more energy-efficient. Growing organic rice can, for example, be four times more energy-efficient than the conventional method (Mendoza 2002). The study also shows that organic farmers required 36 per cent of the energy inputs per hectare compared with
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conventional rice farmers. Niggli et al. (2009) found that organic agriculture reduces production systems’ energy requirements by 25 to 50 per cent compared with conventional chemical-based agriculture. Energy consumption in organic farming systems is reduced by 10 to 70 per cent in European countries and by 28 to 32 per cent in the USA compared with high-input systems, with the exception of certain crops including potatoes and apples, where energy-use is equal or even higher (Pimentel et al. 1983; Hill 2009).
Market price premiums often exist for certified sustainably produced products, however this incentive may not be adequate in the long run unless there is a commensurate increase in global consumer demand for sustainable agricultural products (e.g. in countries other than primarily the EU and USA). Premium price incentives are likely to relatively decrease in response to supply and demand elasticities (Oberholtzer et al. 2005). However, if prices of conventionally grown food (crops and animals) included the costs of their externalities, sustainable products may become relatively less expensive than conventional products. Furthermore, if the positive ecosystem service benefits of sustainable practices were valued and monetised as incremental payments to green farmers, greener agriculture products would become more competitive with conventional products.
Macroeconomic benefits from greening agriculture Significant secondary macro-economic and poverty reduction benefits are expected from greening agriculture. Investments aimed at increasing the productivity of the agriculture sector have proved to be more than twice as effective in reducing rural poverty
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