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American
Journal of Agricultural Economics REVIEW: This book is a collection of essays addressing the theme of the farm as a natural habitat with values extending beyond the direct production of food and fiber. The editors are Dana Jackson, associate director of the private nonprofit Land Stewardship Project, and Laura Jackson, an associate professor of biology at the University of Northern Iowa. The central theme of the book is closely tied to the philosophy of Aldo Leopold and the notion of the farmer as conservationist. Indeed, the foreword to the book is written by Nina Leopold Bradley, a member of the board of directors of the Aldo Leopold Foundation. The book has very few charts, graphs or statistics. The emphasis instead is primarily on case studies and individual farming experiences, primarily in the Upper Midwest. The editors and chapter contributors have a variety of backgrounds that cut across academic, environmental, and agricultural disciplines, but many of the contributors have an environmental orientation to their backgrounds. Given all this, I expected the book to be an indictment of current U.S. agricultural production. While there were some elements of this present, overall I found the book to be positive in its approach to farmers and the agricultural community. The book is divided into four parts. Part I is a description of agriculture as viewed by the authors as an “ecological sacrifice zone.” Chapter 1 by Dana Jackson outlines the vision of Aldo Leopold and identifies examples of agricultural practices that, when implemented, provide agro-ecological restoration of farms. The author does acknowledge that such restoration will create new problems, both ecological and economic, but believes that they can be solved. Chapter 2 is devoted to a case study of what is wrong with modern agriculture in the Red River Valley of Minnesota. The author, Brian DeVore of the Land Stewardship Project, discusses hog manure spills and a wheat scab fungus as examples of costly byproducts of modern industrial agriculture. Laura Jackson in Chapter 3 develops an interesting charge to fellow conservation biologists to look at the farm landscape as well as public lands. Private property restrictions, a mandate to feed the world through agriculture, and a preference for “pure” biology are cited by her as reasons why biologists have traditionally avoided agricultural lands in their studies. Part II features five chapters, all of which focus on farmers in the Upper Midwest and their practical experiences in combining farming with ecological concerns. Of particular interest is Chapter 8, authored by Brian DeVore, which attempts to synthesize a variety of anecdotal evidence about why some farmers become advocates for dramatic changes in farming practices and others do not. Examples range from pesticide poisoning of family members to general environmental concerns. Unfortunately, no real conclusions can be drawn from the examples and the economic implications for widespread adoption of the practices discussed are ignored. The five chapters in Part III attempt to describe what widespread ecosystem management on intensively farmed landscapes would look like. The experience of integrating nature and farming in Britain is discussed in Chapter 9 by Heather Robertson and Richard Jefferson, who are both affiliated with English Nature, the British government’s advisor on conservation in England. In chapter 10 Laura Jackson uses statistics to look at Iowa agriculture and biological diversity prior to the 1950s. Chapter 11 contains a somewhat more technical discussion of the benefits of biodiversity for soil health and other aspects of agricultural production by crop/weed ecologist Nicholas Jordan. Chapter 12 is an interesting summary of eight projects where The Nature Conservancy is working on agricultural land to promote conservation of biodiversity. The author, Judith Soule, worked for The Nature Conservancy for ten years. One strategy employed by The Nature Conservancy is the catalyst approach where financial incentives were offered to farmers to adopt environmentally friendly production practices. Other strategies included demonstrations mixed with incentives. The author points out the real differences in approaches and learning styles between farmers, ranchers, and conservation groups such as The Nature Conservancy that make interactions and successful programs difficult. In Chapter 13, Carol Shennan and Collin Bode from the University of California, Santa Cruz, discuss a project in the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge in California with a mandate to promote both agriculture and wildlife. The final section of the book, Part IV, is a discussion of the policies and programs required to bring about better integration of agriculture and ecological concerns on U.S. farmland. The chapters range from individual farm planning to changes in farm policy. In chapter 14, horticulture professor and extension specialist Rhonda Janke discusses the notion of whole farm planning and outlines some programs in place in Kansas and elsewhere that attempt to implement this program. A major conclusion of this chapter is that moving toward environmental quality goals in agriculture is an incremental process that may take considerable time. Chapter 15 by Cheryl Miller is a case study of introducing ecosystem management into flood restoration decisions in the Red River Valley from the perspective of a National Audubon Society staff member. Beth Waterhouse, the author of Chapter 16, focuses solely on ethics and emotions as motivating factors in land management. In contrast, Chapter 17 by Dana Jackson looks at changes in consumer demand needed to create more biological diversity on farmlands. Finally, in Chapter 18 George Boody, executive director of the Land Stewardship Project, makes the case for agriculture as a public good with multiple benefits and outlines changes in farm policies that would protect the environment as well as agricultural production and income. Although the book contributors are primarily non-economists, nevertheless this book should be of interest to economists who are involved in agricultural land use, production, and policy issues. The case studies and examples employed in the book are, for the most part, well developed and informative and easily adapted to undergraduate classroom or outreach presentations where multi-disciplinary references are useful. The recurring themes include the need for environmentalists to better adapt and work with farmers as well as the notion that economic criteria are often a major barrier to change in the agricultural arena. These themes help to focus the book on potential positive changes in agricultural practices, rather than agriculture as the environmental enemy. The strengths of the book include its readability, organizational focus, and wide variety of contributors. Some of the chapters are excellent and even innovative. My own favorite is the overview of The Nature Conservancy programs and philosophy. In terms of limitations, it must be noted that the case study approach often employed by the authors does not allow many general conclusions to be drawn. The general lack of statistics or analysis improves readability, but does not lead to conclusions that extend far beyond the given farm or study area. In addition, while it was refreshing to find so many conservationists in a variety of fields acknowledging the general importance of economics in farm decision making, there was very little economic data in any of the case studies presented. The implication that the success of a particular farm example could be applied to a broader variety of settings was usually not substantiated by any economic analysis. Nor were the economic implications for output and food prices of widespread adoption of environmentally friendly farm production practices discussed. In summary, I found the book to be a highly readable, informative book about the public good nature of agriculture. The editors have done a good job of organizing and focusing the book, given the many contributors and their varied backgrounds. The obstacles to implementing environmental goals on private land are clearly delineated. Reasonable approaches to changing farm level practices as well as public policy are outlined. Despite the incomplete analysis of economic implications, the book is a good starting point for further discussions. —Linda Lee, University of Connecticut Copyright
©2003 American Agricultural Economics Association |
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