Biodiversity-food trade-offs when agricultural land is spared from production

Palmer, Charles ORCID: 0000-0002-1252-179X, Groom, Ben ORCID: 0000-0003-0729-143X, Sileci, Lorenzo ORCID: 0000-0003-4110-9427 and Langton, Steve (2024) Biodiversity-food trade-offs when agricultural land is spared from production. American Journal of Agricultural Economics. ISSN 0002-9092 (In Press)

Text (Palmer et al. AJAE_FINAL) - Accepted Version Pending embargo until 1 January 2100. Download (2MB)

Abstract

Biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes, the world’s predominant land use, could involve sparing, or setting aside, agricultural land from production, implying biodiversity-food trade-offs. Employing bird species and agricultural data in two panel datasets, we evaluate the extent of set-aside’s trade-offs in England between 1992 and 2007. Mixed biodiversity outcomes are reflected in a marginal effect, of a 100ha increase in set-aside, associated with a 1-2% increase in species abundance and richness, no impact on Shannon-Wiener diversity and a 0.03 standard deviation fall in phylogenetic diversity. Lower phylogenetic diversity indicates that populations of less genetically distinct bird species appear when set-aside increases. These effects are discontinuous for abundance and richness, and larger in the long-run than in the short-run for richness and phylogenetic diversity. Set-aside led, on average, to a 7-9% fall in cereal land. In turn, this led to an up to 2% decline in cereal output. A yield increase of 5-10% is likely due to the setting aside of mostly marginal land. Biodiversity-food trade-offs in agricultural landscapes could be minimised with a carefully-targeted set-aside policy, based on clearly defined biodiversity goals, and in settings where there is still scope for intensification.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2024
Divisions:	Geography & Environment Grantham Research Institute
Subjects:	S Agriculture G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General)
JEL classification:	Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture > Q18 - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q57 - Ecological Economics: Ecosystem Services; Biodiversity Conservation; Bioeconomics R - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics > R5 - Regional Government Analysis > R52 - Land Use and Other Regulations
Date Deposited:	04 Dec 2024 16:36
Last Modified:	19 Dec 2024 01:00
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/126254

Actions (login required)

View Item