The accompanying Taking Stock Paper presents a series of case studies that illustrate the contribution that the identification and analysis of multiple functions can make towards solving a range of social, economic and environmental problems related to land use, food security, trade, rural development, tourism and other industries (linked to agriculture). They show that there are a number of inherent advantages of the multiple functions of agriculture:
The main contributions of the multifunctional character of agriculture and land come about mainly through enhancing the effective operation of markets, enhancing the operation of public institutions and catalysing the emergence of new techniques and technologies.
Enhancing market mechanisms can strengthen the impact of MFCAL, for example:
Improvements in institutional arrangements can include:
The emergence of innovative techniques and technologies can be facilitated by:
The individual case studies can also be used to illustrate particular parameters, features and advantages of the MFCAL concept.
MFCAL involves complex combinations of spatial relations at different scales. Analysis is relevant at the local or micro levels, but also at regional, international and global scales. For example, innovation in availability and use of water resources is critical to agriculture at the local level, but the appropriate scale for determining the best management of an often limited resource is generally at the regional level.
Multiple functions may be relevant beyond the specific geographical scale of a given example. For example, they can relate to local issues (individual, household and extended family use of fields) or non-local issues (national and regional dimensions of export, trade and marketing networks). Some processes, such as the transfer of research information, are not determined spatially, but appropriate geographical distributions and impacts can be identified in order to improve delivery and relevance.
Dependency on scale means that changes at one level (say national policy) may have a direct impact at a very different scale (such as the household or the individual smallholder), and vice versa. Similarly, the multifunctional character may vary through space: similar processes may yield diverse outcomes in different places. Production and marketing of just one species can have a very different impact on local biodiversity in different places, depending on the relations of the species to others in the ecosystem, its importance for the physical characteristics of the terrain (for example, of a climax tree species), etc. A single process may even have a range of impacts at different scales and geographical levels. For example, forestry plantations can simultaneously make a positive contribution to global carbon sequestration and substitution, to reducing erosion in a given watershed and to firewood production for domestic and market use. Location-specific, nostalgic, or even seemingly backward agricultural practices and land patterns can generate substantial regional income from the tourist industry. An example of a negative impact is the use of excessive upstream fertiliser which reduces downstream water quality and contributes to the eutrophication of reservoirs and estuaries.
The approach thus incorporates geographical distribution, relationships and scale. Complex patterns and interactions are evaluated at the local, sub-regional, national, regional and international scales. The approach can capitalise on work with techniques such as agro-ecological zoning, biodiversity inventories, and mapping of land tenure, access and use systems.
MFCAL also has a temporal dimension. Basic notions of change and continuity depend on assessing transition and transformation over time, in sequence and as cycles. There is thus a need to examine and specify the time horizons for different functions and their implications. Evaluation of economic benefit from goods and services should clearly incorporate short, mid and long-term considerations. However, one function can cover different spans of time. For example, agro-forestry has impacts and benefits that vary in time according to its functions for controlling erosion, facilitating infiltration of rainwater and thus replenishing the water table, furnishing fodder to domestic and wild animals, and fixing nitrogen in the soil. In another example, some forms of institutionalised national or regional change (such as the development of new varieties through crop research) will occur at a much slower rate than experimentation and adoption of new techniques and technologies at the farm level (for instance different seed varieties, cropping strategies and land use).
There can also be another important time dimension. Some processes have distinct stages that imply a specific sequence or cycle over a defined period. Repetitive cycles can still incorporate aspects of cumulative change, whether ecological or social. Transitions and transformation may yield very different short and long-term impacts (as an example, short-term investment costs in small-scale land management techniques can lead to significant long-term income and environmental benefits). The aim remains to optimise both short and long-term benefits and establish precedents for sustainable development.
Multiple functions may generate multiple impacts. These may vary in time and space and can be strongly influenced by a variety of (often local) case-specific factors and conditions. The factors that influence the precise outcomes also vary.
The challenge is to isolate, identify and explain those factors that enable (or disable) given processes and outcomes. Factors that contribute to similar processes in different places (or times) may include indigenous knowledge systems, access to alternative technologies, the availability of efficient markets for inputs and outputs, and efficient and effective local institutions. Any descriptive approach should therefore seek to record the range of factors, constraints and incentives that contribute either negatively or positively to given processes and outcomes.
Variations of both functions and impacts involves gains and losses - more significantly, gainers and losers. Informed decision-making and negotiation requires a transparent assessment of trade-offs. Understanding and dealing with these is difficult because they may involve stakeholders with different power and resource control. Failure to resolve stakeholder conflicts at various levels and develop consensus on strategies and priorities is mainly due to the lack of methods for assessing and quantifying trade-offs, but also to lack of institutions and mechanisms for agreeing priorities and building consensus.
There is a need to assist the process of making judgements of relative value. It may be necessary in some cases to recognise that certain projected impacts are more important than others. These considerations affect all levels. Both household heads and policy makers can face similar dilemmas regarding the differing priorities regarding, for example, food security, social welfare, the environment and the sustainability of production. The results are often decisions about the merits of particular trade-offs.
Trade-offs may possess distinct temporal and spatial dimensions. For policy dialogue and debate, potentially relevant scales for assessment and intervention include:
Specific practices may have different impacts across geographical areas. Increased food production in a watershed, for example, may lead to reduced water quality downstream.
Specific land-use practices may also have different short and long-term impacts. In order to maintain precious organic materials or minerals in soils, the rate of increase in food production may have to be less in the short term in order to be higher in the long term.
Trade-offs clearly have a combination of social and ecological impacts, and appreciation of likely outcomes can be quantitative or qualitative. Establishing the criteria for precise measurement raises difficult questions. Despite the availability of concepts such as contingent valuation, replacement cost estimation and surrogate market values, the difficulties of assigning value to environmental resources and other forms of national capital are widely recognised. The challenge is to fix clear criteria and methods for estimating the relative value of different trade-offs into the identification, analysis and evaluation of the multiple functions of agriculture and land. Nevertheless, the economic importance of trade-offs is generally becoming better understood and appreciated as part of the decision-making process.
One way of incorporating trade-off considerations is to focus on benefits that embrace multiple (positive) impacts. This approach may still raise questions relating to the different value or weighting of these benefits and the more complicated trade-off calculations that may arise from cross-functional scenarios. Benefits are also typically inter-related and co-dependent. Indeed, these touch on some of the founding canons of environmentally sustainable development (such as hypotheses about the possibility of integrating short and long-term benefits, and of marrying economic and environmental imperatives) which seek to correct what has been portrayed as the systematic bias towards the excessive use of environmental resources.
Agriculture and land-use are strongly influenced by a range of specific factors, conditions and incentives. These factors determine the impact and contribution of different land-use patterns. Enabling factors include local knowledge, the availability of technology, the efficiency of markets and the effectiveness of institutions.
Social structure and institutions are at the heart of the multifunctional character. Most change is manifested through the reorganisation of collective behaviour, whether at the scale of a domestic or kin group or the nation state. Mechanisms for managing collaboration, co-operation and conflict affect the impact of challenges and innovation in agriculture and land, and create structural differences in opportunity with direct impact on equity and sustainability. Desired transformations in society certainly concern systems of rural production and conservation of resources, but also concern the transfer, presentation and application of knowledge.
The level and scope of different actors and institutions, public and private, profit and non-profit, are important. Organisations range from community-based associations to international business or agencies. Bodies on which collective action can be based include associations mobilised by common interest and on the basis of family, residential and professional provenance. The importance of institutions is well illustrated in the range of examples in the cases studies.