Valuing diversification benefits through intercropping in Mediterranean agroecosystems: A choice experiment approach

Francisco Alcon, Cristina Marín-Miñano, Jose A. Zabala, María-Dolores de-Miguel and J. Martinez-Paz

Ecological Economics, 2020, vol. 171, issue C

Abstract: The agricultural sector faces a series of environmental challenges such as water and soil pollution, erosion or biodiversity loss, especially in monoculture systems. Alternatively, crop diversification is seen as an option to reduce negative impacts and to enhance agricultural Ecosystem Services (ES). Most of these ES, such as improving resilience, despite the benefits and the high social value, do not take part in the market. In this context, the present paper presents an analysis of social preferences regarding crop diversification practices in Mediterranean agroecosystems. To do so, a choice experiment has been developed to assess social demand for more welfare-improving agricultural cropping systems. Benefits were obtained from improving environmental and cultural ES provision due to intercropping, as crop diversification practices. The results show a strong social preference for crop diversification with regard to all the benefits considered in the experiment. In fact, the total economic value for non-market goods and services provided by intercropping, which ranges from 900 to 1400 €/ha/year, for some crops might be potentially higher than cropland financial benefits. These results highlight the social support for a change in agricultural model to reach sustainable agroecosystems, which is essential to ensure the success of agrarian and rural development policies.

Keywords: Agriculture; Woody crops; Diversified farming; Ecosystem services; Social preferences; South-East Spain; Willingness to pay; Total economic value (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800919314429
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:171:y:2020:i:c:s0921800919314429

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106593

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().