Integrating Agricultural and Environmental Policies
Asian governments are trying to promote agricultural practices which conserve the environment
This change is not because food production is seen as less important than it was before. It is because protecting the environment is the only way in which Asian societies will be able to meet their future food needs.
To be sustainable, agriculture must take the long-term view. It is not easy for individual farmers to do this today, at a time of low agricultural prices and competition from imports. They will only do it if governments promote the right policies, which combine agricultural and environmental concerns. A recent FFTC international seminar discussed how this might be done.
Paying for a Healthy Environment
Integrating environmental and agricultural policies is likely to mean a large investment from governments. We cannot assume that funding will come from the private sector and market forces. Funding from the private sector is for profit. Farming techniques based on improved management are difficult to copyright. They give a profit to the user, but not to those who develop the technology.
A good example is integrated pest management (IPM). This reduces the use of pesticides, and is more friendly to the environment than chemical pest control. Although IPM systems may use some commercial inputs, they are based mainly on the skilled management of biological inputs combined with improved cultural practices. There has been little incentive for the private sector to develop improved IPM systems, because there is little commercial profit from them. In every country in the world, most of the research and development for IPM has been done by the public sector (government research institutes and state colleges).
Incentives for Farmers
It is clear that the integration of environment and agricultural policies cannot be left simply to market forces. Indeed, it is the operation of market forces, which emphasize lower production costs and higher yields, which have produced the environmentally damaging intensive agriculture seen all over the world today. To change this situation, farmers must be given new kinds of incentives.
The key question is, what kind of incentives should replace market forces? How can we encourage farmers to use environmentally friendly agricultural practices? The incentives which are available include taxes on farm inputs, price supports for goods produced by selected agricultural techniques, and income supports paid to farmers who carry out conservation practices. Another possibility is that farmers should be made to pay for any environmental damage they cause, such as pollution or depletion of groundwater. Another approach is direct controls, such as requiring livestock producers to install waste treatment plants
Most governments tend to prefer direct controls. However, monitoring and enforcement are difficult and costly. Also, since environmentally friendly agriculture tends to be based on efficient management of resources, it may not be easy to evaluate. For example, a short farm inspection may not be able to show whether the farmer is using pesticides or IPM to control crop pests.
It is sometimes suggested that governments should tax chemical inputs, to make them more expensive and encourage farmers to use IPM. This may be feasible in industrialized countries, where the cost of chemical inputs is only a small part of total production costs. However, a tax of this kind would increase the burden of farmers in low-income countries. They can hardly afford chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Any tax that would put the poor under a disadvantage would not be acceptable in most Asian countries.
Whatever regulations or incentives are chosen, they are likely to be costly and to involve funding by central government. This presumably means using funds earned by other sectors. Since urban people are often in a majority, the extent to which they may be willing to subsidize the rural environment will depend on whether they see any benefits, whether practical or spiritual. The policy objective may be to limit agricultural activity, or change it. Which is chosen will depend on its environmental impact and its cultural context in a particular society.
Maintaining viable rural economies is not just a cultural decision. Countries with high rural populations and high unemployment cannot afford the social and economic costs involved if millions of small-scale farmers lose their livelihood and are forced to migrate to towns.
Index of Images
Figure 1 Drying Persimmons, Korea
