Video - Environmental projects in agriculture

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From the course by University of Western Australia

Agriculture, Economics and Nature

143 оценки

University of Western Australia

Agriculture, Economics and Nature

143 оценки

Sound economic thinking is crucial for farmers because they depend on good economic decision making to survive. Governments depend on economic information to make good policy decisions on behalf of the community. This course will help you to contribute to better decision making by farmers, or by agencies servicing agriculture, and it will help you to understand why farmers respond to policies and economic opportunities in the ways they do. You can use this course to improve your skills and knowledge, and to assess whether this is a subject that you'd like to study further. The course includes high-quality video lectures, interviews with experts, demonstrations of how to build economic models in spreadsheets, practice quizzes, and a range of recommended readings and optional readings. Assessment is by a final exam. The key economic principles that we’ll learn about can help us understand changes that have occurred in agriculture, and support improved decision making about things like agricultural production methods, agricultural input levels, resource conservation, and the balance between agricultural production and its environmental impacts. There are literally thousands of agricultural economists around the world who work on these issues, so there is a wealth of knowledge to draw on for the course. Watch a brief video about our course here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_IeYGpeqV8

From the lesson

The economics of agri-environmental projects

Week 5 discusses the importance of extending economics beyond the farm gate, characteristics of agri-environmental projects, Benefit: Cost Analysis, and provides an example with Gippsland Lakes.

Video - Environmental projects in agriculture5:26

Meet the Instructors

Professor David Pannell, BSc(Agric), BEc, PhD
Head of School of Agricultural and Resource Economics
University of Western Australia
Jacob Hawkins, BA(Biol), MESM, PhD
School of Agricultural and Resource Economics
University of Western Australia

[MUSIC PLAYING]

A range of government programs around the world

support farmers to undertake environmental projects

on farms, whether they be to reduce the negative effects

of agriculture on the environment

or to enhance the positive effects of agricultural

on the environment.

The environmental issues addressed in these government

programs vary quite a lot from country to country

depending on their histories, their cultures,

different climates, farming systems and so on.

According to the OECD, the common priority areas

for agri-environmental programmes,

efforts to improve water quality,

soil protection and soil quality,

water quantity and water availability, air quality,

and biodiversity.

So I'm going to talk a little bit more deeply about a few

of those starting with water quality.

There are a variety of different agricultural practices

that are promoted in these schemes

to try and improve water quality.

These include reduced agrichemical use, establishment

of vegetation buffers to stop the movement of water

into streams, the growth of trees to lower water tables--

that's a common example in Australia for management

or reduction of salinity-- reduced tillage

to reduce soil erosion, improved management of irrigation water,

capture of tailwater from irrigation farms

to stop it from running into streams.

Then there are a variety of projects focused

on reduction of soil erosion.

So agricultural practices that get

promoted for this include reduced tillage.

Tillage reduction has become a major success story

of environmental improvements in agriculture around the world.

Particularly in developed countries

there's been an enormous growth in the number of farmers

who greatly reduced the amount of plowing they

do when they plant their crops.

Then there's retention of crop residues.

Crop residues can be kept on the surface of the soil

or plowed into the soil, and it makes them more stable and less

likely to erode.

Reduction in grazing pressure to increase soil

cover-- if there's lots of livestock grazing on the soil,

it tends to loosen the surface, and it will

tend to run off, erode away.

Repairing existing erosion gullies and controlling

run off so that it's less likely to cause water erosion.

Next I'm going to talk a little bit about vegetation

and the provision of habitat for biodiversity.

This has been a really common theme

within Australian agri-environmental programs.

So the practices promoted include establishment

of native vegetation either in blocks or in belts

with crops and pastures grown in between the belts,

fencing of native vegetation to prevent grazing by livestock so

that the native vegetation can get established and grow and be

healthy and provide good habitat,

protecting breeding areas and wild food

sources for wild animals and birds and so on,

increasing the variety of crop species

or the different crop varieties of the same species,

and reducing use of toxic chemicals

in those cases where they're known

to be damaging to wildlife.

So many farmers around the world are

engaged in these types of environmental projects.

For example, in Australia we've recently

completed a program called Caring for our Country,

and one of its targets was to assist at least 3o% of farmers

to increase their uptake of sustainable farm and land

management practices that deliver improved ecosystem

services.

So this indicates that there was an intention

to really engage with a large proportion of the population

of farmers who are out there.

Of course, a number of major challenges

remain particularly around biodiversity and water quality

and particularly in rapidly developing countries

like China.

So in China in particular there's

been very rapid growth in agriculture.

This graph shows the increasing grain production over time

as agriculture has developed in China

over the last couple of decades, the last several decades.

And this is a similar graph showing livestock numbers

also rapidly increasing and livestock excreta

being a significant cause of nutrients

that can end up in waterways.

And so there are in China quite a few water bodies

that are really seriously affected by eutrophication

and algal blooms.

So it's a problem they're going to have to address

in a really serious way.

So in summary agri-environmental programs

pursue quite a range of different environmental

benefits and environmental outcomes.

And the local priorities vary from country to country.

There's quite a wide variety of different farming practices

that are promoted in these programs.

They vary depending on the different environmental issue

and depending on the country.

And we've identified that a significant number

of challenges remain.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

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