“Where Farm and Family Meet”
<< MILKER’S MESSAGE >>
THE LAND, MAY 13, 2011
14 A
‘EcoCommerce’ offers opportunities for farmers By TOM ROYER The Land Assistant Editor What is the value of soil? What is the value of a ton of carbon? What is the value of clean water? We frame these questions but lack a rigorous framework from which to develop a measure of these values. — From the foreward to “EcoCommerce 101.” In the first half of the 20th century, the dustbowl years brought attention to the need for conservation efforts in American agriculture. In the decades since then, a focus on improving the quality of our soil, water and air has continually broadened to the point where the majority of farmers are tremendous stewards of our environment. But what is the true value of those efforts? In his book “EcoCommerce 101”, and in the following question-andanswer session, author Tim Gieseke describes a framework by which environmental practices can be fairly evaluated — and rewarded. Q: What is EcoCommerce and why should farmers be paying attention to it?
A: EcoCommerce is a valuation system for so-called ecosystem services or ecoservices. Ecoservices are benefits such as clean water, habitat, soil tilth and carbon sequestration that are generated by the land, depending on how the land is being managed. If pollution are the bad things that leave the land such as sediment and excess nutrients, then ecoservices are the good things. Ecoservices and pollution are the opposite sides of the same coin. The demand for these ecoservices initiated from government and environmental groups, but now food processors, retailers and multinational corporations are demanding them as well. The capacity to supply these ecoservices resides with farmers and the land they manage. Although EcoCommerce recognizes that clean water, habitat and other natural resources have economic value to society, it does not state what the value should be. EcoCommerce provides a governance and valuation framework to allow those that demand these values to pay for them. It also allows these transactions to be placed with the simi-
About “EcoCommerce 101” author Tim Gieseke Gieseke grew up on his parents’ dairy and crop farm near New Ulm, Minn. After gaining some business experience in the southwest United States he returned to his home state, studying chemistry and biology at Minnesota State University-Mankato, earning a masters degree in Environmental Sciences. He worked for the Carver County Soil and Water Conservation District doing field conservation technical work. He also worked as a federal farm bill policy analyst for the Minnesota Project and developed conservation planning courses for certified crop advisers. lar and practical means that other more traditional commodities of corn, soy, cotton and other produce is traded. The additional challenge that is posed on ecoservices in comparison to grain commodities is that measurements such as bushels and pounds and direct use of these commodities is not as straightforward. In summary, EcoCommerce describes how “Farmer Kimball” will generate three income streams from his land: commodity, biomass and ecoservices. Q: What are some elements of a farmer’s operation that would be rewarded within an EcoCommerce system? A: Simply put, farmers would be rewarded for natural resource outcomes that are unique to the management of the farm. All farmers manage their land to produce goods whether that is forage, corn, soy or livestock. While they are producing these commodities they
In 2007 he started Ag Resource Strategies LLC, which integrates natural resource and production resource management. This work included managing the Minnesota Milk Producers Environmental Quality Assurance program, and developing the Livestock EQA for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. He started farming in 1996 on the farm he grew up on, growing corn, soybeans, forage, beef and “a few wine grapes.” He and his wife, Jenny, have three young boys — Max, Isaac and Eli — who are the fifth generation of his family to grow up on their farm. — Tom Royer are also producing a certain quality and quantity water, habitat, carbon and other benefits, but no one is really accounting for those benefits. When I plant a field of corn my decisions are based on soil type, topography and cropping systems. There is value to producing corn so I focus on how to produce the most of it. If there was also value in the quantity and quality of clean water, I would figure out how to tweak the management of that corn field to produce both of these economic values. A farmer gets rewarded by bushels of corn. In EcoCommerce, he is also rewarded using a so-called water quality index. Things that cannot be measured directly, such as the wind chill, heat index and the consumer price index rely on indices. A farmer would be rewarded based on certain land management indices. See GIESEKE, pg. 15A