cultivar_22_Final_EN

Sustainable Intensification: a new technological model in agriculture 21 Public policies: protecting and rewarding public goods Agricultural production occurs in the heart of mod- ified ecosystems (agroecosystems) and not in a factory context totally separated from the environ- ment. Therefore, agricultural techniques have pro- found effects on environmental quality. Some of these effects are positive – for example biodiversity associ- ated with low intensity pro- duction systems – and others are negative – for example pollution, conversion of nat- ural habitat and soil erosion. Unlike the food produced, the environmental effects of agriculture are not sold on the market. Farmers and private systems of technological R&D react above all to things which have market value and reward their effort. All the rest – water quality, biodiversity, in fact all environmental sustain- ability – are a side effect of decisions taken according to what has value. Therefore, the market systemat- ically fails to environmentally regulate agriculture. Adam Smith’s idea of the invisible hand, according to which the market turns our self-interested decisions into the maximum public good, only works if all the consequences of our decisions have a market value (or a positive or negative incentive that regulates our choices). If some of these consequences exist, such as the environmental impacts of agriculture, which are neither exchanged in the market nor regulated by other incentives, the invisible hand no longer leads us to the maximum common good – known as market failure. This results in the privatisation of benefits (in the form of private profits from which the environ- mental costs are not deducted) and collectivisation of the environmental costs (which are borne by third parties), which is unfair and, above all, inefficient. Market failure, as all economists agree, requires state intervention. In the case that interests us here, it requires public policies to deal with environmental sustainability issues in agriculture. These policies can take various forms, from simple environmen- tal regulation to product differentiation according to the ecological footprint, in order to better guide consumers’ buying behaviour, and direct financial incentives to produce environmental public goods through agriculture. Some public intervention, assuming one of the above, is therefore necessary to protect the ecosystem services on which sustainable intensifica- tion is based. Also, as we have seen, in the area of technolog- ical R&D policy, the argument of the public nature of much of agroecological knowledge implies a significant increase in public investment to facil- itate the development of the scientific basis necessary for the intensification of the eco- logical basis. Bibliography Bonny, S. and Daucé, P., 1989. Les nouvelles technologies en agriculture: une approche technique et économique. Cahiers d’Economie et Sociologie Rurales , 13, 5-33. Brown, L., 2004. Outgrowing the Earth: The Food Security Challenge in an Age of Falling Water Tables and Rising Temperatures. Earth Policy Institute. www.earth-policy. org/index.php?/books/out Royal Society, 2009. Reaping the benefits: science and the sustainable intensification of global agriculture. London: The Royal Society. Santos, J. L., 1996. Modelo técnico, espaço e recursos natu- rais. Os balanços energéticos da agricultura portuguesa (1953 e 1989). Anais do Instituto Superior de Agronomia , 45, 263-288. Vanloqueren, G. and Baret, P. V., 2009. How agricultural research systems shape a technological regime that develops genetic engineering but locks out agroecologi- cal innovations. Research Policy , 38, 971-983. Vitousek, P. M., Mooney, H. A., Lubchenco, J., and Melillo, J. M., 1997. Human domination of Earth’s ecosystems. Science , 277, 494-499. Market failure… requires state intervention … it requires public policies to deal with environmental sustainability issues in agriculture. … from simple environmental regulation to product differentiation according to the ecological footprint, in order to better guide consumers’ buying behaviour, and direct financial incentives to produce environmental public goods through agriculture.