Why farms should opt for multiple benefit strategies

The German Advisory Council on Global Change (WGBU – Wissenschaftlicher Beirat der Bundesregierung Globale Umweltveränderung) therefore sees a “trilemma of land use”. 

However, the usefulness of any plot increases the more purposes it serves. Good examples are windmills that rise up above forests or fields under photovoltaic facilities installed up high. The WGBU recommends multiple-benefit strategies of this kind.

Vital humus

An important, though barely visible example is the accumulation of humus in agricultural soils. Humus consists of carbon molecules that result from decomposing plants. They can last for decades, if fields are not ploughed. Humus stores large amounts of carbon and are rich in microorganisms. The approach thus serves both climate mitigation and biodiversity. Soils that contain a lot of humus, moreover, stay moist quite long and are more fertile than the mineralised soils that are common today.

There are many multiple-benefit strategies that serve a variety of purposes. Examples include rice cultivation combined with pisciculture and nitrogen-binding algae (azolla) or fish breeding linked to the growing of vegetables (aquaponics). Moreover, hedges along fields make sense because they reduce wind erosion whilst offering shelter to pest-hunting animals. The application of pesticides tends to be counter-productive in settings like this.

Individual versus collective benefits 

Multiple-benefit strategies make land use more valuable, though they do not necessarily increase financial returns. After all, farms are not paid money for soil organisms and the prevention of drought-induced damage sometime in the future. Preventive action pays in the long run, of course, but the exact monetary value may be impossible to pin down. There is no doubt, however, that the economy – and society as a whole – benefit from multiple usage of plots. 

Tying rural subsidies to multiple-benefit strategies and ecological intensification would therefore be legitimate. The EU would do well to move on from its current Common Agricultural Policy, which basically subsidises acreage, to a Common Ecosystem Policy that would promote multiple land-use.  Successful implementation of multiple-benefit strategies actually requires more knowledge and often also more labour than conventional agriculture does. Artificial intelligence (AI) could prove useful in regard to information processing, by identifying and optimising synergies. Intelligent automation of processes in the field, moreover, could boost labour productivity.

Multi-benefit strategies, however, do not only make sense in the heavily mechanised agriculture of high-income countries. Subsistence farmers in countries with low incomes might benefit as well. Rice-fish-azolla cultivation is attractive in humid regions. Conservation agriculture, moreover, is a hot topic in many countries, and agro-silvo-pastoral systems offer potential livelihoods to smallholders as well as herders. 

Link
WGBU, 2020: Rethinking land in the Anthropocene.
https://www.wbgu.de/en/publications/publication/landshift 

Susanne Neubert is the former director of Humboldt University’s Centre for Rural Development in Berlin. 
susanne.neubert@agrar.hu-berlin.de