Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’alimentation et l’agriculture- FAO
Paiements des services environnementaux (PSE) dans les paysages agricoles
PSE et les pauvres (13)
Bénéfices potentiels
Poor farmers, living in ecologically fragile, economically marginal and environmentally degraded areas are potential service providers (e.g. small farmers located along the steep slopes of the upper watersheds). If poverty is a major cause of environmental degradation, then paying producers to adopt more environmentally friendly systems of production could result both in poverty reduction and increased environmental benefits.
Small-scale agricultural producers, who tend to be among the poorer groups of the society, are potential service providers (e.g. small farmers located along the steep slopes of the upper watersheds). PES programmes could bring additional income to these farmers, help reduce income variability and generate other social and cultural benefits. The ability of poor farmers to benefit from PES programmes depends on their location and the characteristics of their livelihood systems.
Location is a key factor defining the potential costs and returns to farmers for the provision of environmental services. Most rural poor live in ecologically fragile, economically marginal and environmentally degraded areas. Using poverty rate measures could allow to give an indication of how many people living in an area suitable for higher environmental services provision, are poor. Geographical mapping can show this spatial intersection of poverty, low agricultural suitability and provision of environmental services (14) and identify locations with a combination of high poverty, low agricultural productivity and high potential for environmental service supply, which can be potentially suitable sites for programmes combining environmental protection and poverty reduction objectives.
Even if the poor are located in areas that could supply environmental services, their participation to PES programmes depends on their overall livelihood strategy. Most of the poor live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for survival. In deciding whether an area could participate in a PES programme or not, it is crucial to determine if only minor changes to current land-management systems are required or if a complete change of land use is needed in order to produce environmental services. PES programmes allowing mix-use activities that provide diversified sources of income (e.g. agro-forestry) have better chances to be implemented by poor farmers than those imposing land use-restriction rules (e.g. programmes discouraging unsustainable grazing or cropping).
The poor are most likely to benefit from participation in PES programmes where land distribution is relatively equitable, and where lands are of poor quality for agricultural production but of high quality for environmental service supply. They are most likely to benefit from programmes that involve a change of farming systems, rather than land use, since the small size of the land holdings and food security concerns will limit their ability and inclination to take land completely out of agricultural production.(13)this section draws heavily on The State of Food and Agriculture 2007.
(14) see maps in The State of Food and Agriculture 2007
(15) for more on this see Less-favoured areas: looking beyond agriculture towards ecosystem services. By Lipper, L., Pingali, P. & Zurek, M. In R. Ruben, J. Pender & A. Kuyvenhoven, eds. Sustainable poverty reduction in less-favoured areas. Wallingford, UK, CABI. OR as FAO ESA Working Paper No. 06-08. Rome.
