Land Sharing vs Land Sparing to Conserve Biodiversity: How Agricultural Markets Make the Difference
2017
Desquilbet, Marion | Dorin, Bruno | Couvet, Denis | Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) | Toulouse School of Economics (TSE-R) ; Université Toulouse Capitole (UT Capitole) ; Communauté d'universités et établissements de Toulouse (Comue de Toulouse)-Communauté d'universités et établissements de Toulouse (Comue de Toulouse)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) | Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (Cirad) | centre international de recherche sur l'environnement et le développement (CIRED) ; Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (Cirad)-École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS)-AgroParisTech-École nationale des ponts et chaussées (ENPC)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) | Centre de sciences humaines de New Delhi (CSH) ; Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires étrangères (MEAE)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) | Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN) | ANR-11-ALID-0002,OCAD,Offrir et Consommer une Alimentation Durable(2011)
International audience
Show more [+] Less [-]English. In this paper, we model the supply and demand for agricultural goods and assess and compare how welfare, land use, and biodiversity are affected under intensive and extensive farming systems at market equilibrium instead of at exogenous production levels. As long as demand is responsive to price, and intensive farming has lower production costs, there exists a rebound effect (larger market size) of intensive farming. Intensive farming is then less beneficial to biodiversity than extensive farming is, except when there is a high degree of convexity between biodiversity and yield. On the other hand, extensive farming leads to higher prices and smaller quantities for consumers. Depending on parameter values, it may increase or decrease agricultural producer profits. Implementing “active” land sparing by zoning some land for agriculture and other land for conservation could overcome the rebound effect of intensive farming, but we show that farmers have then incentives to encroach on land zoned for conservation, with higher incentives under intensive farming. We also show that the primary effect of the higher prices associated with extensive farming is a reduction of animal feed production, which has a higher price elasticity of demand, whereas less of an effect is observed on plant-based food production and almost no effect is observed on biofuel production if there are mandatory blending policies.
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