Okay. We listened to the farmers and this is what they said:
“I always try to choose practices that have environmental benefits but if it’s going to cause me to lose money then I can’t take that choice.”
- Survey Participant, reported in Swinton et al, 2015
We also looked at the economic situation of farmers and this is what we found:
See all that red? That means most farmers operate on thin profit margins. The large and very large farms do better, which is why they lead the way in sustainability: they can afford the risk, initial investment, and that long delay before the investment pays off.
Tax increases play a role in getting farmers to be better stewards of the environment, but they haven't made much of a difference so far. For instance, agrochemical input taxes have been implemented in many US states, with little impact on agrochemical use. Tax increases need to be incremental and predictable, and complemented by policies and programs that make life a little bit easier for hard-working, low-margin farmers.
Up-front costs impede the adoption of sustainable practices and technologies. So we need to create incentives for farmers to make that initial investment. Want more farmers to adopt no-till cultivation? Allow farmers to deduct the entire cost of expensive no-till planters in the first year of purchase. Want smaller and moderate-sized farms to practice labor-intensive precision application of fertilizer and pesticide? Or take more land out of cultivation? Provide tax credits and subsidies.
Forget whether the farmers should be paid by the government to do the right thing. The point is how to save the soil, the air, the critters, and the planet - without putting farmers out of business.
Reference:
Swinton, S. M., N. Rector, G. P. Robertson, C. B. Jolejole-Foreman, and F. Lupi. 2015. Farmer decisions about adopting environmentally beneficial practices. Pages 340-359 in S. K. Hamilton, J. E. Doll, and G. P. Robertson, editors. The Ecology of Agricultural Landscapes: Long-Term Research on the Path to Sustainability. Oxford University Press, New York, New York, USA. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Farmer-Decisions-about-Adopting-Environmentally-Swinton-Rector/44533dc45361685e9aa65a8fd04e2757919ba387