Food security depends on agriculture which itself is dependent on ecosystem services. Famers are stewards and beneficiaries of ecosystem services – along with other stakeholders around them.

However, the protection and enhancement of most ecosystem services in agriculture require an active contribution from farmers. Practices such as terracing, afforesting, agroforestry and conservation tillage are necessary – but farmers need a reason to embark on these activities.

Existing markets do not value ecosystem services because these services are considered as freely available, instead of being seen as valuable products that could cease to be in supply if not properly managed.

Without short and long term incentives, farmers will not be able to invest the time and money required to change agricultural practices and overcome technical, cultural or financial adoption barriers .

Thanks to improved practices and resulting agro-ecosystem health, farm productivity will be more resilient, protecting rural livelihoods and ensuring rural and urban food security.

World food security requires a more efficient and profitable agriculture enhancing the ecosystems services underpinning it

Ecosystems are Earth’s infrastructure. Sustainable agriculture and food production depend on ecosystem services, the engine of

Incentives for Ecosystem Services in Agriculture (IES)

ClimateLandscapes BiodiversityFood Water

the environment. They are essential to life. They maintain healthy soils, enable pollination and regulation of pests and disease

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Supporting farmers with integrated planning is expensive. Incentives link ecosystem services beneficiaries with their stewards. This means linking communities, private businesses, NGOs and governments with stewards like the farmers in the example above. Incentives cover all the ways to possibly create an agreement between the service providers and the beneficiaries.

Incentives for ecosystem services are diverse, ranging from regulatory (permits, laws, quotas) to voluntary (certification, labelling). They can be governed by private or public actors, and combinations of different types of incentives seem can better results at lower cost.

The Rio Rural Development Programme: an incentives package www.microbacias.rj.gov.br/en/index.jsp

In the State of Rio de Janeiro, small farmers face a hard task to comply with forest and water-protection laws and generate income in a limited farm land. To support them, the Rio Rural Development Programme integrates both regulatory and productive incentives to simultaneously improve agricultural productivity and biodiversity conservation practices:

• Short-term incentive: Improve fodder and dairy breeds so farmers need fewer animals, assistance to zone the farm and implement conservation practices.

• Long-term incentive: Invest in storage and processing, combined with improved access to markets.

This way, farmers can increase their revenue per hectare; eventually the compliance with the forest and water-protection laws will yield ecosystem service benefits in the farm, too.

Regulatory Voluntary

• Prohibition of use• Taxes and charges

• Subsidies • Green public procurement

• Property and use rights• Permits and quotas• Offsets

Public

Private • Standards• Smart Enviironmental Impact Assessment investments• Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES)

• Corporate Environmental and Social Responsibility

STAKEHOLDER COORDINATIONIMPROVED INVESTMENTS

Photos clockwise from top left: ©FAO/Thomas Hug, ©FAO/Leonie Marinovich, ©FAO/Sandro Cespoli, ©Rio Rural, W. Critchley, A. Brack, ©Rio Rural.

A coordinated approach to planning and investment in agriculture and environmental measures can deliver mutually enforced benefits to farmers, and to other sectors of society. Unfortunately, the private and public agenda, as well as planning processes for environmental and agricultural objectives, too often develop separately.

Through incentives for ecosystem services it is possible for the private and public sector to reach common environmental and rural development goals.

Public programmes to improve agricultural productivity can act as incentives for conservation and sustainable management of resources. Private actors may have specific interests in securing sustainable supply of agro-ecosystem products and services. Together, they can finance and provide an integrated package of incentives that effectively assists their country in the transition to sustainable agriculture. A better combination of policy instruments and pooling of social and environmental investments from the public and private sector will help to secure better provision of ecosystem services, at lower social costs.

The Rio Rural Development Programme: integrated planning and financingwww.microbacias.rj.gov.br/en/index.jsp

The Rio Rural Development Programme in Brazil acts as an umbrella initiative under which several agriculture and rural multi-sectoral development programmes join forces. Together they provide incentives for flexible compliance of forest and water protection laws. This combines:

• Public programmes investing in improved livestock breeds, pasture management and improved fodder, access to marketing and rural credit.

• Private companies contributing to forest conservation and rehabilitation, as part of their compensation of negative environmental impacts, and to rural enterprises for their corporate social responsibility.

• Water user fees financing waste water management technologies and soil conservation measures.

• State and municipal governments implementing a PES mechanism, based on transferring funds from state tax on circulation of goods and services directly to small farmers that implement private forest reserves.

• Conservation NGOs facilitating the creation of farm forest reserves.

Our objective is to promote the development of efficient Incentives for Ecosystem Services (IES) packages to support the adoption of sustainable agro-ecosystem management practices. These packages include incentives ranging from helping to overcome short-term needs: training, inputs, conditional cash transfers, assistance in the clarification of use rights, to those that can in-build the conditions for long-term change: preferential access to credit and value-added markets and invest-ment in alternative income-generating activities.

Water recharge buffer$ compensatory afforestation from private sector

Rotational grazing $ Min of Agriculture with REDD funds (Raising productivity to reduce pressure on remaining forest)

with soil conservation and gully plugging along the water line$ from water users

To do so we:

Improved fodder: sugar cane silage$ Min of Agriculture

Fenced water spring$ from water users

Possible co-financing from different users of the ecosystem services provided by agricultureExample of an integrated IES package

WHAT WE DO

• Identify and describe the conditions for successful IES packages through case studies analysis. We look in particular at farmers’ motivations, private sector commitments and the enabling legal and institutional frameworks that allow them to build IES packages together.

• Foster forums for debate on IES packages at the global, regional and national level. We provide opportunities for cross-fertilization between geographies and development of locally-adapted IES packages and policies.

• Develop a web toolbox for policy makers and other stakeholders to combine and successfully implement IES.

• Support focus countries in the development of an IES-enabling policy framework allowing the transition towards a more sustainable agricultural sector.

The dialogue process will help create critical mass to provoke changes in national policies, regional strategies and, eventually, global resolutions.

Latin America and the Caribbean Organized in partnership with the FAO Regional project strengthening the

agro-environmental policies in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the development of voluntary guidelines for the region.www.fao.org/in-action/programa-brasil-fao/proyectos/politicas-agroambientales/es/

East AfricaOrganized in partnership with the FAO Office in Kenya and the World Agroforestry Centre – ICRAF, this dialogue process will improve

coordination between IES pilots in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda, much experienced in negotiating with the private sector, but

encountering important policy barriers.http://presa.worldagroforestry.org/

TO SUPPORT THE DEBATE: REGIONAL DIALOGUEThe objective of the regional dialogue is to assist member countries in integrating IES into sustainable agriculture and conservation strategies by improving inter-sectorial policy articulation, institutional coordination and joint investment from public and private sector. Through a regional dialogue process in Latin America and East Africa the project will review field experience on IES design as well as on policy and legal barriers encountered. It will facilitate a discussion within the host countries, and between others in the region, drawing on the case study analysis of successful IES packages, and the remaining obstacles.

The dialogue will highlight:• Mechanisms supporting farmers in protecting or strengthening ecosystem services such as public

policies that reward conservation practices or corporate strategies for green agri-business.

• Policies facilitating the mainstreaming of IES: how IES pilots might have informed policies, and how they can now support their outscaling. In the process, the project will identify countries interested in developing further their IES enabling environment.

Photos clockwise from top left: ©FAO/Giuseppe Bizzarri, © Rio Rural, ©FAO/Giuseppe Bizzarri, ©FAO/Rosetta Messori, ©FAO/Abdelhak Senna, ©FAO/Rosetta Messori, ©FAO/Giulio Napolitano.

In principle 2 Direct actions to conserve, protect and enhance natural resources: Integrating the ecosystem approach in planning ensure long term availability of natural resources.

IES examples

• payments for using and for providing environmental services, such as pollinators, carbon sequestration

• grazing fees

• certification of forest management

• certification of aquaculture for environmental protection

IES are key policy and practices of principles 2 and 3 of FAO’s strategy for Sustainable Food And Agriculturewww.fao.org/sustainability/en/

This work is also integrated into the FAO Major Area of Work on Ecosystem Servicesand Biodiversity for Food and Agriculturewww.fao.org/ecosystem-services-biodiversity/en

In principle 3 Protect rural livelihoods and improve equity and social well-being: Understanding ecosystem services dynamics and safeguarding them, preserves the livelihood basis of the poorest and maintain agriculture potential in the future.

IES examples

• protect and increase farmers’ access to resources, such as pasture, water

• increase farmers‘ access to markets through capacity-building, credit, infrastructure

• establish payment schemes for environmental services (PES)

• improve local markets

• promote small and medium enterprises

Visit the IES project website for more information and contacts: www.fao.org/nr/aboutnr/incentives-for-ecosystem-services/en

Financial assistance is provided by the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG)

IES: KEY TOOL TO ACHIEVE FOOD SECURITY

One of the FAO’s strategic objectives is to make agriculture, livestock, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable. Ecosystem services are essential to agriculture and IES are a way to ensure their long-term protection and enhancement.

IES Delivers on FAO’s Strategic Objective 2Make agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable

Photos clockwise from top left: ©FAO/Giuseppe Bizzarri, © Rio Rural, ©FAO/Giuseppe Bizzarri, ©FAO/Rosetta Messori, ©FAO/Abdelhak Senna, ©FAO/Rosetta Messori, ©FAO/Giulio Napolitano.

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