Leslie Lipper

Payments for ecosystem services and poverty reduction: concepts, issues, and empirical perspectives

Paying for the provision of environmental services is a recent policy innovation attracting much attention in both developed and developing countries. This innovation, referred to as ‘payments for ecosystem services’ (when the emphasis is on enhancing ‘nature’ services) or ‘payments for environmental services’ (when amenities provided by the built environment are also included) is referred to here as PES. PES programs aim to harness market forces to obtain more efficient environmental outcomes. Since so many opportunities for PES programs could involve farmers in poor regions, international aid agencies and private donors, looking for a double dividend, increasingly consider using PES programs as a potential way of meeting both social and environmental objectives.

When could payments for environmental services benefit the poor

Since modification of agricultural production choices in developing countries often provides positive environmental externalities to people in developed countries, payment for environmental services (PES) has become an important topic in the context of economic development and poverty reduction. We consider two broad categories of PES programs, land-diversion programs, where lands are diverted from agriculture to other uses, and working-land programs, where agricultural production activities are modified to achieve environmental objectives. PES programs are generally good for landowners. The distribution of land and land quality is critical in determining poverty impacts. Where ES and agricultural productivity are negatively correlated and the poor own lands of low agricultural quality, they stand to gain from PES programs. Consumers and wage laborers may lose where food supply is inelastic and programs reduce labor demand. Working-land programs may have better distributional effects than diversion programs.

Food security, climate change, and sustainable land management. A review

Agriculture production in developing countries must be increased to meet food demand for a growing population. Earlier literature suggests that sustainable land management could increase food production without degrading soil and water resources. Improved agronomic practices include organic fertilization, minimum soil disturbance, and incorporation of residues, terraces, water harvesting and conservation, and agroforestry. These practices can also deliver co-benefits in the form of reduced greenhouse gas emissions and enhanced carbon storage in soils and biomass. Here, we review 160 studies reporting original field data on the yield effects of sustainable land management practices sequestering soil carbon. The major points are: (1) sustainable land management generally leads to increased yields, although the magnitude and variability of results varies by specific practice and agro-climatic conditions. For instance, yield effects are in some cases negative for improved fallows, terraces, minimum tillage, and live fences. Whereas, positive yield effects are observed consistently for cover crops, organic fertilizer, mulching, and water harvesting. Yields are also generally higher in areas of low and variable rainfall. (2) Isolating the yield effects of individual practices is complicated by the adoption of combinations or “packages” of sustainable land management options. (3) Sustainable land management generally increases soil carbon sequestration. Agroforestry increases aboveground C sequestration and organic fertilization reduces CO2 emissions. (4) Rainfall distribution is a key determinant of the mitigation effects of adopting specific sustainable land management practices. Mitigation effects of adopting sustainable land management are higher in higher rainfall areas, with the exception of water management.

Supplying Carbon Sequestration From West African Rangelands: Opportunities and Barriers

Abstract The emergence of markets for mitigation of climate change presents new opportunities for increasing economic and ecological returns to rangelands in developing countries. Improving rangeland management is a potentially significant source of mitigation from sequestration. It is appealing due to the likely links to sustainable agricultural development and poverty reduction. Many of the changes needed to sequester carbon are also associated with improved rangeland productivity and incomes. We provide an overview of the key issues that arise in determining the potential of carbon markets to support improved rangeland management focusing on West Africa, an area where pastoralism is a major economic activity with extensive rangelands that offer considerable potential for sequestering carbon. Estimates of the potential for increasing sequestration through improved rangeland management are summarized. Per hectare amounts are low, but aggregate potential is high. Carbon emission reductions are generated by reducing or avoiding land degradation, rehabilitating degraded lands, and increasing native carbon stocks by increasing aboveground and belowground biomass. Avoiding degradation and rehabilitating lightly degraded lands are the least costly and can generate significant carbon emission reductions. Carbon offsets from agricultural sources are currently limited under regulatory cap and trade regimes, and prices in voluntary markets are relatively low. Low returns to carbon offsets per hectare mean that significant co-benefits in the form of increased rangeland productivity and incomes would be necessary to induce participation. High transactions costs can be a problem in carbon markets and in adopting improved rangeland management practices, highlighting the need for institutions to provide effective coordination, monitoring, and enforcement. Evidence from Burkina Faso suggests the potential for existing local-level institutions to play an important role in future carbon payment programs, should they emerge.

Climate-smart agriculture global research agenda: scientific basis for action

BackgroundClimate-smart agriculture (CSA) addresses the challenge of meeting the growing demand for food, fibre and fuel, despite the changing climate and fewer opportunities for agricultural expansion on additional lands. CSA focuses on contributing to economic development, poverty reduction and food security; maintaining and enhancing the productivity and resilience of natural and agricultural ecosystem functions, thus building natural capital; and reducing trade-offs involved in meeting these goals. Current gaps in knowledge, work within CSA, and agendas for interdisciplinary research and science-based actions identified at the 2013 Global Science Conference on Climate-Smart Agriculture (Davis, CA, USA) are described here within three themes: (1) farm and food systems, (2) landscape and regional issues and (3) institutional and policy aspects. The first two themes comprise crop physiology and genetics, mitigation and adaptation for livestock and agriculture, barriers to adoption of CSA practices, climate risk management and energy and biofuels (theme 1); and modelling adaptation and uncertainty, achieving multifunctionality, food and fishery systems, forest biodiversity and ecosystem services, rural migration from climate change and metrics (theme 2). Theme 3 comprises designing research that bridges disciplines, integrating stakeholder input to directly link science, action and governance.OutcomesIn addition to interdisciplinary research among these themes, imperatives include developing (1) models that include adaptation and transformation at either the farm or landscape level; (2) capacity approaches to examine multifunctional solutions for agronomic, ecological and socioeconomic challenges; (3) scenarios that are validated by direct evidence and metrics to support behaviours that foster resilience and natural capital; (4) reductions in the risk that can present formidable barriers for farmers during adoption of new technology and practices; and (5) an understanding of how climate affects the rural labour force, land tenure and cultural integrity, and thus the stability of food production. Effective work in CSA will involve stakeholders, address governance issues, examine uncertainties, incorporate social benefits with technological change, and establish climate finance within a green development framework. Here, the socioecological approach is intended to reduce development controversies associated with CSA and to identify technologies, policies and approaches leading to sustainable food production and consumption patterns in a changing climate.

Abatement and Transaction Costs of Carbon-Sink Projects Involving Smallholders

Agroforestry projects have the potential to help mitigate global warming by acting as sinks for greenhouse gasses. However, participation in carbon-sink projects may be constrained by high costs. This problem may be particularly severe for projects involving smallholders in developing countries. Of particular concern are the transaction costs incurred in developing projects, measuring, certifying and selling the carbon-sequestration services generated by such projects. This paper addresses these issues by analysing the implications of transaction and abatement costs in carbon-sequestration projects. A model of project participation is developed, which accounts for the conditions under which both buyers and sellers would be willing to engage in a carbon transaction that involves a long-term commitment. The model is used to identify critical project-design variables (minimum project size, farm price of carbon, minimum area of participating farms). A project feasibility frontier (PFF) is derived, which shows the minimum project size that is feasible for any given market price of carbon. The PFF is used to analyse how the transaction costs imposed by the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol affect project feasibility.

Economics of new technologies for sustainable agriculture

Sustainable agriculture is prescribed as a policy approach that maximizes economic benefits while maintaining environmental quality. It is argued that this approach is human capital-intensive and encourages new scientific developments. To attain sustainability, economic incentives for the development and adoption of precision technologies (with minimal residues that cause environmental damage) have to be developed. Taxation and tradeable permits are desirable policies to attain first-best solutions; however, when heterogeneity and lack-of-information problems are significant, alternative institutions have to be developed. The paper presents and discusses such institutions.

Climate Smart Agriculture? Assessing the Adaptation Implications in Zambia

We examine a set of potentially climate smart agricultural practices, including reduced tillage, crop rotation and legume intercropping, combined with the use of improved seeds and inorganic fertiliser, for their effects on maize yields in Zambia. We use panel data from the Rural Incomes and Livelihoods Surveys merged with a novel set of climatic variables based on geo-referenced historical rainfall and temperature data to explore the changing effects of these practices with climatic conditions. We estimate the impacts on maize yields, and also on the exhibition of very low yields and yield shortfalls from average levels, as indicators of resilience, while controlling for household characteristics. We find that minimum soil disturbance and crop rotation have no significant impact on these yield outcomes, but that legume intercropping significantly increases yields and reduces the probability of low yields even under critical weather stress during the growing season. We also find that the average positive impacts of modern input use (seeds and fertilisers) are significantly conditioned by climatic variables. Timely access to fertiliser emerges as one of the most robust determinants of yields and their resilience. These results have policy implications for targeted interventions to improve theproductivity and the resilience of smallholder agriculture in Zambia in the face of climate change.

Agricultural Biodiversity and Biotechnology in Economic Development

This volume summarizes the current state of knowledge in the economic literature of management of agricultural biotechnology and biodiversity in agricultural and economic development. It identifies key issues confronting policy makers in managing biodiversity and biotechnology and provides a broad, multi-disciplinary analysis of the linkage between the two. It is especially innovative in its use of plant genetic resource management as the basis for is analysis.

Payments for Watershed Services Supporting Sustainable Agricultural Development in Tanzania

Agriculture affects both quantity and quality of water available for other uses and under current production systems, the impact is often negative. Adopting sustainable land management (SLM) practices can foster more efficient water use and increase agricultural productivity, while reducing environmental risks from water pollution and regulating flows serving downstream communities. However, farmers face barriers to adoption of such practices, especially lack of technical capacity and high upfront costs associated with SLM implementation, which is particularly important where land managers are poor. Drawing on a case study from Tanzania, this article discusses how an emerging policy tool—Payments for Environmental Services (PES)—can bridge this gap by providing technical assistance and financial support, thereby lowering the SLM adoption barriers and investing in an appropriate legal and institutional framework for long-term financing and expansion of SLM to improve watershed management.