Supporting farms by selling ecosystem services

The September 2005 issue of Scientific American offers a tantalizing view of the future in which farms support themselves by providing much more than food: "Ecosystem services previously taken for free could generate perhaps half the income of a farm, if markets for various kinds of environmental credits take off as hoped. Farmlands in the future may have a diverse portfolio of ecosystem services to offer a wide range of customers."

For instance, if farmland is managed for multiple uses, farmers could earn income from:

• Biodiversity credits — Conservation organizations and governments can pay farmers to protect high quality natural areas and endangered ecosystems.
• Carbon dioxide offset credits — Industries can pay farmers to plant permanent new forests.
• Renewable electricity — Farmers can lease land for wind turbines.
• Certified sustainable timber — Sustainably harvested trees can be a premium crop.
• Water credits — Urban water authorities could pay for services such as water filtration and flood control.

For this concept to succeed, farmers — and other large landowners — will have to enlarge their concept of working lands. And it will require a different kind of regional land-use planning to anticipate how to preserve enough land to provide the ecosystem services we need.