Conservation policies are usually put in place with the goal of protecting and preserving biodiversity. However, it is critical to recognize that any policy approach can present challenges and unintended consequences. Two leading academics have warned that ‘green’ farming policies may hasten global biodiversity loss.
Rewilding, organic farming, and ‘nature-friendly farming’ measures included in some government conservation policies risk exacerbating the global biodiversity crisis by reducing the amount of food produced in a region, increasing food imports, and exacerbating environmental damage elsewhere.
In an article published in the journal Nature, Professor Ian Bateman of the University of Exeter and Professor Andrew Balmford of the University of Cambridge urge policymakers to consider a bolder approach known as ‘land sparing,’ which they argue is cheaper, more effective, and avoids the displacement of food production and the loss of wildlife habitats overseas.
Land sparing entails finding lower-impact ways to increase yields in farmed areas in order to make room for larger, non-farmed areas of the landscape to be set aside for nature without increasing imports and harming overseas wildlife.
Unless researchers and policymakers assess the overall, global effects of interventions aimed at addressing biodiversity loss and climate change, poor decisions will at best under-deliver, and at worst exacerbate existential threats posed by the extinction and climate crises.
Ian Bateman
Policymakers, they argue, have overlooked the approach due to a failure to consider the broader consequences of changes in land management, arguing that while changes that boost wildlife locally appear to be superficially appealing, if food production is reduced, there are unavoidable knock-on effects elsewhere that must also be considered.
They also point to the ‘Big Farm’ lobby’s influence in maintaining the status quo in agricultural policy, with land-sharing subsidies allocated using a flat rate per hectare, which disproportionately benefits the largest farms, resulting in the top 12% of farms receiving 50% of all UK taxpayer subsidies.
Their article debunks some of the biodiversity benefits of three widely promoted green farming methods.
They argue that while policy-funded measures such as reducing pesticide and fertilizer use on farms can sometimes increase populations of more common animals and plants, it does little for endangered birds, invertebrates, plants, and fungi species that require larger stretches of non-farmed habitat – and can also make matters far worse for overseas biodiversity by lowering yields.
Rewilding initiatives, in which large areas of land are removed from cultivation, can benefit locally endangered species. However, unless other areas experience compensating increases in food output, this reduces local production, increases demand for food imports, and thus harms biodiversity globally.
They also contend that organic farming, in which crops are grown without the use of synthetic fertilizers or modern pesticides, is even more likely to be harmful. Few species will benefit in the farmed area, and the significantly lower yields from this type of farming risk significantly increasing the need for food imports, and thus a country’s impacts on biodiversity elsewhere.
Land sparing, on the other hand, entails retaining or creating large blocks of unfarmed land containing larger populations of the many species that rely on natural habitats, as well as increasing farm yields elsewhere in the region to maintain or even increase overall production.
Promising methods for increasing crop and livestock yields more sustainably than current high-yield practices include genomic screening and gene editing to accelerate animal and crop breeding; using new advances in aquaculture to produce high-value foods with much lower environmental impacts; and increasing access to improved pasture and veterinary care in tropical countries.
The researchers point to field studies on five continents that consistently show how land sparing delivers far greater biodiversity gains than conventional ‘nature-friendly farming’ policies.
They say it is likely to cost a great deal less as well: a survey of UK farmers last year found that land sparing could deliver the same biodiversity outcomes for birds as conventional approaches but at 48 percent of the cost to taxpayers, and with a 21 percent lower impact on food production.
“The stakes are too high for policymakers to continue to ignore the promise of land sparing when so much research demonstrates that it is a far more effective approach than many of the strategies being deployed,” said Ian Bateman, a Professor of Environmental Economics at the University of Exeter Business School who has advised seven UK secretaries of state for the environment over the last decade.
“Unless researchers and policymakers assess the overall, global effects of interventions aimed at addressing biodiversity loss and climate change, poor decisions will at best under-deliver, and at worst exacerbate existential threats posed by the extinction and climate crises.”
