Kay S., Graves A., Palma J.H.N., Moreno G., Roces-Díaz J.V., Aviron S., Chouvardas D., Crous-Duran J., Ferreiro-Domínguez N., García de Jalón S., Măcicăşan V., Mosquera-Losada M.R., Pantera A., Santiago-Freijanes J.J., Szerencsits E., Torralba M., Burgess P.J., Herzog F.
Agroforestry is paying off – Economic evaluation of ecosystem services in European landscapes with and without agroforestry systems.
The study assessed the economic performance of marketable ecosystem services (ES) (biomass production) and
non-marketable ecosystem services and dis-services (groundwater, nutrient loss, soil loss, carbon sequestration,
pollination deficit) in 11 contrasting European landscapes dominated by agroforestry land use compared to
business as usual agricultural practice. The productivity and profitability of the farming activities and the associated
ES were quantified using environmental modelling and economic valuation. After accounting for labour
and machinery costs the financial value of the outputs of Mediterranean agroforestry systems tended to be
greater than the corresponding agricultural system; but in Atlantic and Continental regions the agricultural
system tended to be more profitable. However, when economic values for the associated ES were included, the
relative profitability of agroforestry increased. Agroforestry landscapes: (i) were associated to reduced externalities
of pollution from nutrient and soil losses, and (ii) generated additional benefits from carbon capture
and storage and thus generated an overall higher economic gain. Our findings underline how a market system
that includes the values of broader ES would result in land use change favouring multifunctional agroforestry.
Imposing penalties for dis-services or payments for services would reflect their real world prices and would make
agroforestry a more financially profitable system.