Ecosystem Services Approach for Revitalizing Agriculture in India

Agricultural landscapes referred to as ‘agro-ecosystems’ provide both marketable and non-marketable ecosystem services. The ability of agro-ecosystems to provide ecosystem services is limited by the nature of production systems and production method. Promotion of input-intensive production systems results in short-term productivity gains along with long-term ecological and environmental losses. India’s agriculture suffers from various ecological problems such as soil pollution, overexploitation of groundwater and loss of biodiversity. Policy measures aimed at improving agriculture should shift from a purely ‘productivity enhancement’ objective towards promotion of ecologically sustainable pro-environmental agricultural production (PAP) practices to realize the goal of ‘productivity in perpetuity’. This article examines the feasibility of ‘nudges and incentives’ in payment for ecosystem services/agri-environmental schemes (PES/AES) type schemes in India which could be a possible policy solution. It could nudge farmers to PAP practices and would be fiscally feasible even for individual states to adopt in a federal system of governance.