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Payment for Agro-Ecosystem Services: Developmental Case-History Descriptions of Canada’S Grassroots ‘ALUS’ Programs

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Payment for Agro-Ecosystem Services: Developmental Case-History Descriptions of Canada’S Grassroots ‘ALUS’ Programs Research Journal of Agriculture and Environmental Management Vol. 4(9), pp. 405-431, September, 2015 Available online at http://www.apexjournal.org ISSN 2315-8719© 2015 Apex Journal International Full Length Research Payment for agro-ecosystem services: Developmental case-history descriptions of Canada’s Grassroots ‘ALUS’ Programs Robert L. France* and Jeffrey B. Campbell, Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, Dalhousie University, P.O. Box 550, Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada B2N 5E3. Received 14 August, 2015; Accepted 3 September, 2015; Published 22 September, 2015 Agricultural landscapes provide vital ecosystem services (ES) such as protection of wildlife, biodiversity, and water resources. Traditionally, there has been no monetary value for such non- agricultural ES that benefit society and therefore no financial incentives to private property owners to help justify their production. The Alternative Land Use Services (ALUS) concept is a grassroots approach to compensate farmers for delivering ES. Information obtained from social science approaches based on site visits, in-house technical documents, and conversations with administrators, stakeholders and participating farmers, were used to construct and present, for the first time in the international literature, the developmental case histories for the seven ALUS programs across Canada. Findings indicate that ALUS, despite lacking definitive data on environmental improvements, being administered through a variety of different frameworks, and implemented in remarkably different environmental settings and socio-political jurisdictions has been judged as successful by participants in terms of creating a process to engage farmers in grassroots initiatives of restoring natural assets. Key words: Agriculture producers, ALUS, Canada, payment for ecosystem services INTRODUCTION Agricultural landscapes are managed ecosystems (Antle assets (e.g. wetlands and riparian zones), leading to their and Capalbo, 2002; Swinton, 2008) composed of human subsequent conversion to agriculture, has created subsystems entailing anthropogenic infrastructure, numerous ecological problems through the loss and productive subsystems supplying agricultural crops and overloading of natural ecological functions provided by livestock, and natural/semi-natural subsystems these landscapes (Kareiva and Marvier, 2011).The containing native vegetation and wildlife (Moonen and undervaluation of wild areas can in part be linked to the Bàrberi, 2008). Since the Green Revolution, the misleading market value of the goods and services magnitude of nonpoint-source (NPS) pollution associated provided by the land, that have been traditionally with agriculture has increased through the use of restricted to produced commodities (Devanney and synthetic fertilizers, concentrated livestock production, MacDonald, 2009). This limitation has left no monetary and chemical pest control (Kareiva and Marvier, 2011). value for non-agricultural, ecosystem services (ES) that This, coupled with an historical undervaluation of natural benefit society, and thus no financial incentives to private landowners to help justify their production. Much theoretical discussion exists about the underlying concepts, frameworks, and identification of ES (e.g. *Corresponding author; Email: [email protected] Tel: (902)893- Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005), including 6614 those pertaining to agriculture (e.g. Cooper and Keim, 406 Res. J. Agric. Environ. Manage 1996; Swinton et al., 2007; Power, 2010; Stallman, 2012). 2011). However, descriptions of the practical The objective of the present study is to provide the first implementation of ES are limited (Staes et al., 2010), descriptions of the developmental case-histories of the such that large methodological challenges remain (Turner ALUS programs across Canada. What is unusual about et al., 2003; Turner and Daily, 2008). Although non- the present research, compared to other published market ES have been traditionally ignored by society, in analyses of agricultural PES programs, is the emphasis Canada, as elsewhere, there has been a recent shift placed on providing the backstory to the projects toward recognizing the role that private landowners play discussed; in other words, a deliberate focus on the (Kelco, 2009a,b; Devanney and MacDonald, 2009) in the process of designing ES programs. This is something delivery of such ES as riparian wildlife habitat, fertile that is sorely needed, yet rarely documented, in the lands, flood mitigation, water quality protection, and literature on landscape restoration (France, 2012). recreational opportunities (Olewiler, 2004). These Focusing merely on ends (final products) while ignoring discussions are part of a growing global phenomenon of means (developmental processes) compromises true exploring the concept and praxis of payment for understanding and makes judgment about projects ecosystem services (PES), an approach that compen- difficult and possibly superficial (France, 2012). Our sates individuals or groups who deliver ES by deliberate motivation for this discursive paper is to provide a actions or by avoidance of deleterious practices. precedent example to aid policy makers involved in the Worldwide, there are numerous policies and programs rapid expansion of PES programs that is currently taking targeted to compensate farmers for providing ES, notable place in the developing world and the Global South (e.g. examples of which include the Conservation Reserve Tomich et al., 2004; Wunder et al., 2008; George et al., Program (CRP) in the United States (Dunn et al., 2003; 2009; van Noordwijk and Leimona 2010; Rositano and Shoemaker et al., 1989), the BushTender program in Ferraro 2014). Australia (Stoneham et al., 2003; Windle and Rolfe, 2008), the Common Agriculture Policy in the European Union (Baylis et al., 2006), and the Sloping Land METHODS Conservation Program of China (Bennett, 2008; Song et al., 2014). Descriptive case-study histories were constructed using In Canada, the Alternative Land Uses Services (ALUS) unpublished, ‘grey literature’ documents and reports, program is a novel, grassroots approach to conservation meetings with program coordinators, and site visits to and environmental stewardship in agriculture developed established, former, and future ALUS projects. Meetings (largely) by and (exclusively) for farmers (Bailey and and unstructured interviews with program coordinators Reid, 2004; Delta Waterfowl, 2009). The approach is were recorded at the time of visits in conjunction with based on rewarding farmers who voluntarily provide ES written field notes. Anecdotal conversations, which were by using a market valuation scheme wherein participants not formally recorded, took place with farmers who are are proportionally compensated for land taken out of currently or once were involved with the ALUS programs. production on an aerial basis (Bailey and Reid, 2004; During formal interviews with administrators and Keystone Agricultural Producers, 2004). Although the Partnership Advisory Committee (PAC) members, and ALUS concept has expanded across the Country (Figure anecdotal conversations with farmers, questions about 1), investigation of the inception, development, and the perceived strengths, benefits, weaknesses, and implementation of the programs is lacking. Preliminary suggested areas for improvement of ALUS were bibliographic and on-line research conducted in February answered honestly and without bias. The qualitative 2012, before we initiated our own survey, showed that nature of such interviews and conversations enables whereas ALUS was well documented in popular media collection of information about values and attitudes that (116 press releases), there had not been any publications are frequently missed by quantitative surveys (Raykov in the international literature. In comparison, the CRP, and Marcoulides, 2010; Bryman, 2012). As detailed by which is older and implemented in the United States as a Greenland-Smith (2014), unstructured interviews in the national policy, has produced more than a hundred form of conversations with open-ended and flexible publications in fields ranging from economics, to ecology, question prompts (Zhang and Wildemuth, 2009; Bryman, to hydrology. The preliminary research on the ALUS 2012) are deemed most valuable to the study of programs that has been undertaken is presently available agricultural ES. Such conversational acquisition of data in only the grey literature (10 in-house documents and enables researchers to obtain a wider range of attitudinal several theses) and has thus not been widely circulated. responses than through answers to set questions in As well, the more scholarly research that exists pertains surveys (Kvale and Brinkmann, 2009). In unstructured to only a single program (Johnston, 2012; Lantz et al., interviews, questions are generated spontaneously, France and Campbell 407 Figure 1. ALUS programs as of 2015 discussed in the text: Province-wide, PEI, County of Vermillion River, Alberta, Parkland County, Alberta, Four RM’s near Regina, Saskatchewan, Little Saskatchewan River Conservation District, the Rural Municipality of Blanshard Manitoba, Norfolk County, Ontario, Grey/Bruce Counties, Ontario; and additional planned programs not elaborated on in the text. Source: www.alus.ca. though not without meticulous prior preparation of The main focus of the research was on farmer uptake, targeted avenues of investigation (Patton, 2005), as was administration, and
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