Economic and ecological trade-offs of agricultural specialization at different spatial scales

Stephan Klasen, Katrin M. Meyer, Claudia Dislich, Michael Euler, Heiko Faust, Marcel Gatto, Elisabeth Hettig, Dian N. Melati, I. Nengah Surati Jaya, Fenna Otten, César Perez, Stefanie Steinebach, Suria Tarigan and Kerstin Wiegand
Additional contact information
Katrin M. Meyer: Georg-August-University Göttingen
Claudia Dislich: Georg-August-University Göttingen
Michael Euler: Georg-August-University Göttingen
Heiko Faust: Georg-August-University Göttingen
Marcel Gatto: Georg-August-University Göttingen
Elisabeth Hettig: GIGA Hamburg
Dian N. Melati: Georg-August-University Göttingen
I. Nengah Surati Jaya: Bogor Agricultural University
Fenna Otten: Georg-August-University Göttingen
César Perez: Georg-August-University Göttingen
Stefanie Steinebach: Georg-August-University Göttingen
Suria Tarigan: Bogor Agricultural University
Kerstin Wiegand: Georg-August-University Göttingen

No 178, Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers from Courant Research Centre PEG

Abstract: Specialization in agricultural systems leads to trade-offs between economic gains and ecosystem functions. Economic gains can be maximized when production activities are specialized at increasingly broader scales (from the household to the village, region or above), particularly when markets for outputs and inputs function well and allow specialization as well as high levels of food security. Conversely, a tendency toward specialization likely reduces biodiversity and significantly limits ecosystem functions at the local scale. When agricultural specialization increases and moves to broader scales as a result of improved infrastructure and markets, ecosystem functions can also be endangered at broader spatial scales. Policies to improve agricultural incomes through improvements in infrastructure and the functioning of markets thus affects the severity of the trade-offs. This paper takes Jambi province in Indonesia, a current hotspot of rubber and oil palm monoculture, as a case study to illustrate these issues. In doing so, it empirically investigates the trade-offs between economic gains and ecosystem functions for three spatial levels of scale (i.e. household, village, and region) and discusses ways to resolve these trade-offs.

Keywords: Ecosystem services; economies of scale; Indonesia; monoculture; oil palm; rubber (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q13 Q57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-06-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-env
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www2.vwl.wiso.uni-goettingen.de/courant-papers/CRC-PEG_DP_178.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Economic and ecological trade-offs of agricultural specialization at different spatial scales (2016)
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:got:gotcrc:178

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers from Courant Research Centre PEG Platz der Goettinger Sieben 3; D-37073 Goettingen, GERMANY.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Dominik Noe ().