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Alcon F, Albaladejo-García JA, Martínez-García V, Rossi ES, Blasi E, Lehtonen H, Martínez-Paz JM, Zabala JA. Cost benefit analysis of diversified farming systems across Europe: Incorporating non-market benefits of ecosystem services. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2024; 912:169272. [PMID: 38141994 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169272] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/22/2023] [Revised: 12/08/2023] [Accepted: 12/08/2023] [Indexed: 12/25/2023]
Abstract
Crop diversification can enhance farm economic sustainability while reducing the negative impact on the environment and ecosystem services related. Despite the market and non-market benefits of crop diversification, monocropping is a widely used dominant practice in Europe. In this context, this works aims to assess the overall economic impact of several crop diversification systems across Europe and compared it to the monocropping system. For this purpose, an economic valuation by integrating market and non-market values for eight case studies distributed across three different European pedoclimatic regions (Southern Mediterranean, Northern Mediterranean and Boreal) is proposed. The economic valuation was conducted both in the short and medium-long term. For the short-term we conducted a social gross margin analysis, while for the medium-long term a cost-benefit analysis is developed. The results show an improvement in social gross margins for most of the diversification scenarios assessed when environmental and socio-cultural benefits are considered in the short-term. In the medium and long-term the transformation of cropping towards a more diversified agriculture is encouraged by greater economic benefits. These results provide a first insight in global economic performance of diversified cropping systems, whose main contribution relies on the integration of market and non-market values of ecosystem services from crop diversification. They are expected to be useful for guiding policy makers to promote crop diversification practices as a key instrument for building resilience in farming systems for an adaptive management to climate change.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francisco Alcon
- Departamento de Economía de la Empresa, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Paseo Alfonso XIII 48, 30203 Cartagena, Spain
| | - Jose A Albaladejo-García
- Departamento de Economía de la Empresa, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Paseo Alfonso XIII 48, 30203 Cartagena, Spain; Departamento de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Murcia, Campus de Espinardo, 30100 Murcia, Spain
| | - Victor Martínez-García
- Departamento de Economía de la Empresa, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Paseo Alfonso XIII 48, 30203 Cartagena, Spain
| | - Eleonora S Rossi
- Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-food and Forest systems (DIBAF), University of Tuscia, Via San Camillo del Lellis snc, Viterbo 01100, Italy
| | - Emanuele Blasi
- Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-food and Forest systems (DIBAF), University of Tuscia, Via San Camillo del Lellis snc, Viterbo 01100, Italy
| | - Heikki Lehtonen
- Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Latokartanonkaari 9, PL 2, 00791 Helsinki, Finland
| | - Jose M Martínez-Paz
- Departamento de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Murcia, Campus de Espinardo, 30100 Murcia, Spain
| | - Jose A Zabala
- Departamento de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Murcia, Campus de Espinardo, 30100 Murcia, Spain.
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