Economic Factors Affecting Diversified Farming Systems

By Maria Bowman, David Zilberman. 2013

277 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In response to a shift toward specialization and mechanization during the 20th century, there has been momentum on the part of a vocal contingent of consumers, producers, researchers, and policy makers who call for a transition toward a new model of agriculture. This model employs fewer synthetic inputs, incorporates practices which enhance biodiversity and environmental services at local, regional, and global scales, and takes into account the social implications of production practices, market dynamics, and product mixes. Within this vision, diversified farming systems (DFS) have emerged as a model that incorporates functional biodiversity at multiple temporal and spatial scales to maintain ecosystem services critical to agricultural production. Our aim is to provide an economists’ perspective on the factors which make diversified farming systems (DFS) economically attractive, or not-so-attractive, to farmers, and to discuss the potential for and roadblocks to widespread adoption. We focus on how a range of existing and emerging factors drive profitability and adoption of DFS. We believe that, in order for DFS to thrive, a number of structural changes are needed. These include: 1) public and private investment in the development of low-cost, practical technologies that reduce the costs of production in DFS, 2) support for and coordination of evolving markets for ecosystem services and products from DFS and 3) the elimination of subsidies and crop insurance programs that perpetuate the unsustainable production of staple crops. We suggest that subsidies and funding be directed, instead, toward points 1) and 2), as well as toward incentives for consumption of nutritious food.

Subfields: General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Global and Planetary Change, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c510cbc2b819c059c752d34dc8ab59f88326b4dd

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In General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

In Global and Planetary Change

I. Steffan‐Dewenter

In Plant Science

Citations in the corpus

Adoption of climate‐smart agriculture among smallholder farmers: Does farmer entrepreneurship matter? (2021, result): “This is in line with past evidence of Bowman and Zilberman (2013) that innovativeness allows farmers to pursue activities that reduce financial and physical risks and labour requirements while increasing income.”
Understanding Producers’ Motives for Adopting Sustainable Practices: The Role of Expected Rewards, Risk Perception, and Risk Tolerance (2016, background): “Even if farmers can obtain economic gains in the long run by adopting new technologies, they may be less likely to adopt when facing increased risk (Bowman and Zilberman, 2013).”
Landscape‐level crop diversity benefits biological pest control (2018, background): “Agricultural landscapes are primarily crafted by market forces dictating farmers choices of what, where and how to produce (Bowman & Zilberman, 2013).”
Comparative Economics of Conventional, Organic, and Alternative Agricultural Production Systems (2021, background): “Bowman and Zilberman (2013) provided a perspective on diversified farming systems (DFS) that lie somewhere between organic and industrial agriculture.”
The expansion of modern agriculture and global biodiversity decline: An integrated assessment (2016, unknown): “In this process, farmers only partially take into account their marginal impact on biodiversity, and in turn on agricultural productivity (Bowman and Zilberman, 2013; Heal et al., 2004; Weitzman, 2000).”