Agri-environmental Policy Research Articles

Compelling collective action: Does a shared pollution cap incentivize farmer cooperation to restore water quality?

Decades of voluntary efforts to reduce agricultural nonpoint source pollution have been ineffective at protecting water quality worldwide. While farmer collective action is needed to deal with the geographical extent of diffuse pollution from nutrient runoff, theoretical expectations from commons governance research predicts that farmers will not protect water quality since they have few incentives to do so. These different factors indicate that compulsory approaches are needed. However, the commons literature has tended to overlook the constructive roles that government regulation can play. Research on why farmers adopt on-farm conservation measures similarly has failed to explore farmer cooperation, instead focusing mainly on financial motivations of farmers. Yet, some adoption research indicates that social norms are essential factors shaping (non)adoption, but which are largely overlooked by existing agri-environmental policies. This study examines the important gap of how government regulations can incentive farmer cooperation to improve water quality. I focus on case study of the Florida Everglades, where farmers face joint liability under a phosphorus pollution cap and which has resulted in improvements in water quality over the past 20 years. Farms’ drainage disrupts the oligotrophic conditions of the Florida Everglades, but water quality has steadily improved since regulations began in 1994. However, the regulations set compliance jointly for farmers, devolving responsibility to ensure sufficient adoption of conservation practices and deal with free riding. While state monitoring shows that collectively farms have improved water quality, we do not know whether participation is widespread or concentrated among a few large farms. This study provides the first analysis of farm-level water quality outcomes for this area and how judicial, legislative, and local institutions interact to encourage farmer cooperation. Results show that a majority of farms have improved their water quality, demonstrating that collective action has been a key element in the outcome. At the same time, poor-performing farms reveals shortcomings of joint compliance. I end by discussing the implications of how individual and collective requirements can provide farmers with valuable information while also drawing on farmer social dynamics to encourage greater participation.

Encouraging farmers' participation in the Conservation Stewardship Program: A field experiment

In this paper we present the results of a field experiment on encouraging farmers' application for agri-environmental schemes, specifically the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) that is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture at the state level. We sent different versions of a recruitment/enrollment letter to agricultural producers in 36 Nebraska counties with historically very low levels of CSP enrollment. We found that the letters doubled the uptake rates as compared to the control (no letter) population. Personalized letters with a handwritten phrase appealing to people's empathetic tendencies toward environmental conservation – an empathy nudge – had the largest impact. When the same nudge was photocopied, it performed statistically significantly worse than handwritten and somewhat (statistically insignificant) worse than a standard letter. The experimental results suggest that the USDA can double the application rate at a cost of only $58–116 per farm. If the money spent on sending letters were instead directed toward increasing financial incentives, it would be cost-equivalent to adding 2.5–5 cents per acre per year to CSP payments. During the time of the experiment, the CSP payments in the state were on average $6.8/acre for rangeland and $24/acre for cropland per year, and extra 2.5–5 cents per acre per year is unlikely to affect the decision of a farmer to apply. As such, from an agri-environmental policy perspective, using personalized letters is highly cost effective.

Do outcome or input risks limit adoption of environmental projects: Rehabilitating gullies in Great Barrier Reef catchments

A key challenge in agri-environmental policy is to encourage agricultural producers to adopt better management practices to reduce adverse environmental impacts. Research attention around has focused on the underlying drivers of landholder actions and decisions, the costs and returns of improving management practices, and the effects of different policy mechanisms to achieve change. One potential barrier to changing management practices are the risks that agricultural producers may perceive to exist. Outcome risks relate to the possibility that a management change may not achieve environmental goals or anticipated production increases, while input risks relate to the possibility that the costs of management change turn out to be much higher than expected. These risks lead to perceptions of winners' curse, where producers are reluctant to adopt better management practices in case costs are higher and returns are lower than expected. In this paper we test the extent to which the willingness to implement environmental improvements are limited by conservation outcome risks or input risks, using a choice experiment in workshops with landholders. Our case study involved projects to reduce gully erosion and subsequent sediment run-off which it attributed to inshore reef health decline in catchments adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef.

The Effect of Carbon Tax on Farm Income: Evidence from a Canadian Province

British Columbia (BC) introduced North America’s first carbon tax in 2008. An analysis of the impact of the BC carbon tax is of interest to various stakeholders in the jurisdiction where the tax was implemented. Other Canadian provinces and other countries contemplating a carbon tax policy are looking for insights on how to optimize potential positive and negative consequences. Given that government agri-environmental policies often emphasize farm-level support and environmental performance, there is interest in understanding the farm-level impacts of the carbon tax. The effect of the BC carbon tax on farm income and related production cost variables is investigated. Panel data from 2000 to 2015 are analyzed using both tabular and econometric approaches of the difference-in-difference method. The results indicate that the carbon tax is associated with a decline in net farm income-to-receipts ratios ranging between 8 and 12 cents per dollar of farm receipts. The analysis for costs-to-receipts ratios suggest that the carbon tax is directly related to higher commercial feed costs, farm labour costs, interest costs, and depreciation costs. Results of the regression analysis indicate that all the carbon tax effects are highly statistically significant. These findings can inform policy discussions about carbon tax effects on farmers.

Delivering a better natural environment? The Agriculture Bill and future agri-environment policy

This article reviews the options for delivering a new approach to agricultural support post-Brexit, and in particular the development of a new approach to delivering environmental protection and biodiversity improvement through future farming policy. It considers the options for developing a policy based on 'public money for public goods', and argues for the development of an approach based on payment for the ecosystem services provided by land management and by farming. If a 'payment for ecosystem services' approach is to be successful, however, careful consideration must be given to the reform of land tenure law in order to secure a stable platform for the long term management of ecosystems and landscapes. And new legal models will be needed for capturing multi-party obligations for the purchase and sale of ecosystem services. Brexit offers many opportunities for developing a new and innovative approach to agri-environmental policy, but the development of a market for the sale and purchase of the important ecosystem services provided by agriculture will present significant challenges.

Consumers’ Recognition of Multifunctionality in Agriculture and Price Premiums for Environmentally Friendly Agricultural Products: Evidence from a Survey Experiment

We conduct an online survey experiment to determine the influence of multifunctionality recognition in agriculture on the price premiums of environmental-friendly agricultural products. We use the case of fish-friendly rice produced in Shiga prefecture, Japan, which contributes to the conservation of the water and ecosystem in rural areas around Lake Biwa by setting up fish ways and reducing the use of herbicides. We assume two conditions for consumers to pay premiums on environmental-friendly agricultural products. The first is that consumers recognize multifunctionality in agriculture. The second condition is that consumers have a correct understanding of environment-friendly agricultural products. We thus examine the effects of respondents’ attributes on their responses to two types of visual stimuli: one associated with the multifunctionality of agriculture and information about environment-friendly agricultural products. In the analysis of the respondents; willingness to pay, the price premium of the group with both the stimulus and information is significantly higher than the price premium of the control group with no interventions. However, the price premium of the group with only the stimulus is not statistically different for the control group. The policy implication of this research is that consumers are more likely to support agri-environmental policies if they recognize both the multifunctionality of agriculture and the properties of environmental-friendly agricultural products. The two types of stimuli have complimentary effects on increasing price premiums. Promoting the recognition of multifunctionality is especially important for those who do not usually access information on agriculture.

Effects of payment for ecosystem services and agricultural subsidy programs on rural household land use decisions in China: Synergy or trade-off?

While agri-environmental policies that target different problems are often simultaneously implemented at the same place, little attention has been paid to the interactions of the policies, either in policy design or evaluation. The goal of this study is to understand the potential interactions (synergies or trade-offs) between an agricultural subsidy program and two payments for ecosystem services (PES) programs, namely the Conversion of Cropland to Forest Program (CCFP) and the Ecological Welfare Forest Program (EWFP), and their effects on household land use decisions. Data collected from 481 rural households in Anhui, China are used for the exploration. The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework is used to identify factors that may affect household land use decisions, i.e., whether to expand, stabilize, or shrink the cropland area, and further to identify whether to abandon or rent out land if the shrinkage decision is made. The results show that: (1) most rural households (58%) in the study area reduce cultivated land, and mostly via cropland abandonment, while only 16% of the interviewed households expand land area; (2) the most important factors determining cropland expansion include farm tools and transportation equipment, while the number of parcels and financial support are the dominant factors that stimulate households to adopt abandoning over renting-out decisions when deciding to shrink cropland; (3) EWFP payment has a significant direct impact on cropland management, while no significant influences are observed from the other two programs; (4) there exist complex trade-offs among the three government programs with similar or conflicting aims, which highlights the need to take policy interactions into account when designing new agri-environmental policies.

Self-initiated nature conservation by farmers: an analysis of Dutch farming

ABSTRACTIn Europe, the active contribution of farmers to nature conservation is mainly voluntary. Whereas participation in agri-environmental schemes (AES) has been studied in detail, less is known about self-initiated nature conservation. Given the alarming decline in species diversity and abundance in agricultural landscapes, it is important to explore this form of conservation in more detail. In this paper we report on the results of a survey of Dutch dairy and arable farmers. We conclude that a large majority of farmers conduct self-initiated conservation activities on their farmyards and fields with varying ecological impacts and impacts on farming system. Helping birds was the most often mentioned activity. Farm size, on-farm side activities (in dairy farming), organic farming, the quality of the surrounding area and the absence of external constraints have a positive effect on the number of activities. Intensity has a negative effect on both the number of activities and on the probability that farmers conduct activities with substantial ecological impacts. There is no unambiguous evidence of a ‘crowding-out effect’ due to participation in AES. More research in this area can help contributing to a maximal exploitation of the conservation potential by farmers and to creating synergies with agri-environmental policies.

A novel management-based system of payments for ecosystem services for targeted agri-environmental policy

Agricultural policy should recognize the farmers’ role in delivering ecosystem services (ES) to society, for which both farmers and policy makers need improved tools to set objective environmental targets and fair distribution of subsidies. We aimed to quantify the effect of beneficial agricultural practices on ES delivery, and to develop and apply a generic framework of management-based payments for ES (PES). We carried out a Delphi expert consultation (researchers and technicians/managers) on the interface agriculture-environment by which we measured the contribution of current agricultural practices at farm level to relevant ES in Mediterranean agroecosystems. Next, we designed a novel framework of PES that used these contributions to rank the practices that satisfied three agri-environmental policy objectives (equal importance of ES, focus on biodiversity and climate, and focus on social demands). We found that the relative contribution of practices to individual ES delivery was rather similar, especially for those ES influenced by many agricultural practices. However, when considering different objectives in the PES framework, differences in practice prioritization were apparent. The framework was able to reward farmers according to their objective contribution to conservation priorities. The PES system also showed that grazing management practices were multifunctional and delivered ES in bundles.

Is economic institutional adaptation feasible for agri-environmental policy? Case of Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition standards

This review focuses on Czech implementation of standards for soil and water protection called Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC), with linkage to the European Union (EU) level. I investigate different elements of adaptive institutional economics: (i) summarise current knowledge regarding the social reasons for introducing GAEC; (ii) assess the evidence linked to GAEC to better understand the potential as well as boundaries of formalizing cause-effect links; (iii) clarify the pertinence of producers’ claims on costs accruing from GAEC implementation. These three points highlight the thesis of this paper: implementation in farmers’ practices of the theoretical concept of sustainability in terms of bridging together economics, society and the environment. The economic reasoning for GAEC introduction within adaptive institutional economics stems from the relational positioning of the knowledge of the costs of the impact of agricultural land use on other characteristic rural land uses. GAEC are needed, albeit the size of support obtained by producers surpasses the costs of complying; therefore, the result pays off for farms. We have learned that GAEC implementation is important from regional to EU levels and that its role is more related to economic institutional adaptation than to regulation. Adaptation of institutional economics is therefore feasible, making it possible to understand GAEC as a network which manages and enables knowledge transfer linked directly to regulation. Institutional economics can link sustainability with farmers’ practices and accounts for the behaviour of the farmers. In this review, I find that, for society, it is necessary to require measurement of agri-environmental outcomes for water resources, soil and biodiversity through GAEC at appropriate scales. These scales are likely to be relevant to adaptive institutional economy localities perceived by the rural public.

Badania stanu zakwaszenia gleb w kształtowaniu regionalnych polityk rolno-środowiskowych

Badania stanu zakwaszenia gleb w kształtowaniu regionalnych polityk rolno-środowiskowych

Fair to the cow or fair to the farmer? The preferences of conventional milk buyers for ethical attributes of milk

Conventional dairy farming has been under pressure for lacking animal welfare, biodiversity loss through abandonment and intensification of grassland, and low milk prices during the 2015/16 milk price crisis. The relatively stable organic milk prices during the milk price crisis indicate that consumers have preferences for product characteristics besides the price. We investigate through a choice experiment the willingness-to-pay (WTP) of German conventional milk buyers for ethical attributes of milk production that address the above-mentioned concerns. Respondents have the highest WTP for animal welfare – free-stall plus summer pasture – followed by biodiversity conservation, support for small, below-average income farms, and regional milk production. Respondents also have a positive WTP to support all farms but only in combination with regional production. We further find a positive WTP to support small farms in combination with tethering. This implies animal-welfare concerns are somewhat counterbalanced by fairness aspects. Our insights may support developing labels and agri-environmental policies concerning ethical aspects of conventional milk production.

Land cover and vegetation data from an ecological survey of "key habitat" landscapes in England, 1992–1993

Abstract. Since 1978, a series of national surveys (Countryside Survey, CS) have been carried out by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) (formerly the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, ITE) to gather data on the natural environment in Great Britain (GB). As the sampling framework for these surveys is not optimised to yield data on rarer or more localised habitats, a survey was commissioned by the then Department of the Environment (DOE, now the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, DEFRA) in the 1990s to carry out additional survey work in English landscapes which contained semi-natural habitats that were perceived to be under threat, or which represented areas of concern to the ministry. The landscapes were lowland heath, chalk and limestone (calcareous) grasslands, coasts and uplands. The information recorded allowed an assessment of the extent and quality of a range of habitats defined during the project, which can now be translated into standard UK broad and priority habitat classes. The survey, known as the "Key Habitat Survey", followed a design which was a series of gridded, stratified, randomly selected 1 km squares taken as representative of each of the four landscape types in England, determined from statistical land classification and geological data ("spatial masks"). The definitions of the landscapes are given in the descriptions of the spatial masks, along with definitions of the surveyed habitats. A total of 213 of the 1 km2 square sample sites were surveyed in the summers of 1992 and 1993, with information being collected on vegetation species, land cover, landscape features and land use, applying standardised repeatable methods. The database contributes additional information and value to the long-term monitoring data gathered by the Countryside Survey and provides a valuable baseline against which future ecological changes may be compared, offering the potential for a repeat survey. The data were analysed and described in a series of contract reports and are summarised in the present paper, showing for example that valuable habitats were restricted in all landscapes, with the majority located within protected areas of countryside according to different UK designations. The dataset provides major potential for analyses, beyond those already published, for example in relation to climate change, agri-environment policies and land management. Precise locations of the plots are restricted, largely for reasons of landowner confidentiality. However, the representative nature of the dataset makes it highly valuable for evaluating the status of ecological elements within the associated landscapes surveyed. Both land cover data and vegetation plot data were collected during the surveys in 1992 and 1993 and are available via the following DOI: https://doi.org/10.5285/7aefe6aa-0760-4b6d-9473-fad8b960abd4. The spatial masks are also available from https://doi.org/10.5285/dc583be3-3649-4df6-b67e-b0f40b4ec895.

Agri-environmental Policies and Public Goods: An Assessment of Coalition Incentives and Minimum Participation Rules

An increasing number of papers analyse the inclusion of collective/spatial conditionality constraints in agricultural policies dealing with natural resource management. In this article we theoretically assess the conditions in which employing collective conditionality constraints linked to incentives better reach the social preferences on PG provision by agriculture. We deal with this issue by using a coalition formation model to endogenize the size of the group of farmers cooperating, and investigate how it is affected by different policy schemes. We analyse and compare the following policy schemes: (1) a homogenous payment that target the whole population of farmers, (2) a coalition bonus, that incentivizes only the contributions by the coalition members, and (3) a coalition bonus associated to a MPR on the size of the coalition. The results show that formulating payments that discriminate between co-operators and free-riders, and associating to such a payment a MPR, is relatively more effective than the traditional homogenous payments. However this is true only under some (local) conditions that we theoretically derived.

A participatory approach for comparing stakeholders’ evaluation of P loss mitigation options in a high ecological status river catchment

Phosphorus (P) transfer from land to water is a source of diffuse pollution that contributes to the decline in ecological status of river bodies in the European Union. The Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) provides for the protection of water bodies that represent pristine or near-pristine condition, classified as high ecological status through the adoption of an agri-environmental decision making process that promotes stakeholder participation. However, successful implementation of agri-environmental policies can prove challenging when faced with uncertainties and diverging opinions due to the variety of actors involved. This study adopted a participatory approach including stakeholders with conflicting interests in the selection of P transfer mitigation policies. Fifteen P transfer mitigation options were shortlisted based on agronomic and environmental data from a case-study agricultural catchment and presented to a group of experts and farmers. Results showed significant disparities between perceived effectiveness by farmers and experts groups, with experts prioritizing problems related to connectivity issues, while farmers to soil compaction and erosion. In addition, measured agronomic and environmental variables were used to model effectiveness from a decision support tool (FARMSCOPER) and compared with stakeholder groups’ perceived effectiveness. This approach combined the scientific research with the empirical knowledge of farmers and the modelling of quantified field and farm data. This study showed that stakeholders are diverse, and perceive effectiveness based on group-specific operational and social factors. Experts identified effectiveness at catchment scale, whilst farmers identified field scale effectiveness. For decision support tools and simulation models to be beneficial for policy makers, they need to be calibrated to local conditions and farm typologies to select the right measure at farm scale. The study recommends improved knowledge transfer between interested actors and the need for integration of conflicting opinions in policy design. A bottom-up approach to decision making is suggested, to assist in the decentralization of the procedures towards more effectively implemented P transfer mitigation policies.

Landscape configurational heterogeneity by small-scale agriculture, not crop diversity, maintains pollinators and plant reproduction in western Europe.

Agricultural intensification is one of the main causes for the current biodiversity crisis. While reversing habitat loss on agricultural land is challenging, increasing the farmland configurational heterogeneity (higher field border density) and farmland compositional heterogeneity (higher crop diversity) has been proposed to counteract some habitat loss. Here, we tested whether increased farmland configurational and compositional heterogeneity promote wild pollinators and plant reproduction in 229 landscapes located in four major western European agricultural regions. High-field border density consistently increased wild bee abundance and seed set of radish (Raphanus sativus), probably through enhanced connectivity. In particular, we demonstrate the importance of crop-crop borders for pollinator movement as an additional experiment showed higher transfer of a pollen analogue along crop-crop borders than across fields or along semi-natural crop borders. By contrast, high crop diversity reduced bee abundance, probably due to an increase of crop types with particularly intensive management. This highlights the importance of crop identity when higher crop diversity is promoted. Our results show that small-scale agricultural systems can boost pollinators and plant reproduction. Agri-environmental policies should therefore aim to halt and reverse the current trend of increasing field sizes and to reduce the amount of crop types with particularly intensive management.

Periurban Agriculture: Do the Current EU Agri-Environmental Policy Programmes Fit with it?

In the European Union (EU) periurban agriculture is under the same agri-environmental policy regime designed for general agriculture. We argue that the specific needs of periurban agriculture may justify ad hoc agri-environmental policy measures. We present results from a Choice Experiment (CE) performed on a sample of 600 people living in the municipality of Milan, which was designed to assess the willingness to pay (WTP) for ecological benefits generated by four agri-environmental practices implementable in the periurban area and already included in the Rural Development Programmes of the Lombardy region. Results suggest that a large population share is willing to pay to support an increase in the use of the agricultural practices studied with an average WTP ranging between 5.6 to 16.3 euro/person/year, according to the type of practice. These results are in contrast with their current low level of adoption. The sub-optimal uptake rate is likely due to an insufficient per hectare compensating payment, which is too low to cover the income foregone consequent to the adoption of sustainable agriculture measures in this area. The mismatch between the low uptake rate and the high social benefits generated by the four agri-environmental agricultural practices sheds light on the need to design agri-environmental policy programmes specifically targeted to periurban areas, where the costs of compliance with AEMs are high and the social benefits of their adoption are large.

Market and Welfare Impacts of Agri-Environmental Policy Options in the Malaysian Rice Sector

The use of agrochemicals including pesticides and chemical-based fertilisers in the Malaysian rice sector is stimulated through substantial direct subsidies. In light of the pursuit of environmentally friendly rice production practices, the government may consider reducing the use of these inputs. In doing so, a number of policy options, including subsidy reductions and reducing dependence on chemicals and pesticides and to move towards more natural and environmental friendly inputs are considered. This study employs a partial equilibrium model with explicit welfare functions and linkages to the Rest of the World (ROW) to address the impacts of government policies on the use of agrochemicals, food security and welfare. Results suggest that a 10 percent reduction in agrochemical subsidies considerably reduces the use of agrochemicals; however, it significantly decreases national welfare and weakens food security. Further simulation denotes a reduction of 10 percent of demand for agrochemicals has com-parable impacts to that of a 10 percent reduction in agrochemical subsidies except that it increases the nation’s welfare. Overall results imply that encouraging the use of organic inputs might have a more desirable impact on the variables of interest relative to reducing agrochemicals either through subsidy reduction or input restriction.

Current agri-environmental policies dismiss varied perceptions and discourses on management of traditional rural biotopes

Traditional rural biotopes (TRBs) are threatened habitats that host significant biodiversity and several ecosystem services, and depend on active management such as low-intensity grazing. The current study explores private landowners’ decision-making on TRB management and abandonment within a social-ecological system framework. We provide insight into supporting resilience of TRB systems in the face of agricultural modernization. Using a mixed methods approach with content analysis and Q analysis, we demonstrate that TRB management fosters cultural, biological, aesthetic, and utilitarian values. These are reflected in different ways through conservationist’s, profit-oriented farmer’s, landscape manager’s, and landscape admirer’s discourses on TRB management. Overall, management reinforces landowners’ place attachment, and reflects an approach to landscapes as spatial representations of cultural heritage and identity over multiple generations. Landowners consider TRB pasturage and its social-ecological outcomes motivating and rewarding. Giving up grazing cattle and perceived bureaucracy of national agri-environment scheme contribute to TRB abandonment. Landowners point out that current policies detach TRB management from what is seen as “regular agriculture”, and the focus on monetary compensation bypasses the multiple values tied to TRB management. Based on our results, we suggest that promoting TRBs requires reconfiguring the current arrangement of remedial management payments and adopting a more participatory governance approach. Locally, resilience of TRB systems relies on the connections between landowners and landscapes that foster sense of place and landscape identity, which can be supported by knowledge sharing and collaborative grazing efforts among landowners.

Effects of grazing abandonment on soil multifunctionality: The role of plant functional traits

Abstract Extensive livestock grazing is a global land use activity that has numerous social, cultural, and environmental benefits. Many marginal zones grazed for centuries are now suffering from abandonment, which has been found to be interrelated with species and functional diversity loss, and has potential consequences for the provision of ecosystem services such as soil fertility and soil carbon storage. We sampled soil and plant species abundance in a total of 64 plots (5 × 5 m), in wet and dry habitats under different grazing regimes (from moderate grazing to grazing abandonment for at least 30 years) in Central Spain. We tested the influence of grazing intensity and water availability on different variables related to soil fertility and also on soil carbon storage. In addition, Community weighted mean and Rao quadratic entropy were calculated for two effect traits (specific leaf area and plant height), in order to assess the ultimate effects of these functional attributes on multifunctionality (i.e., the provision of several simultaneous ecosystem functions). We found that grazing abandonment generally produces a reduction in soil organic matter, total nitrogen, available potassium and phosphorus, aggregate stability and soil carbon storage. In addition, grazing abandonment had a negative effect on soil texture with loss of fine particles (clay and silt) and water holding capacity, but only in dry habitats and in longer-term abandoned situation. In general, soil multifunctionality was higher in wet than dry habitats, decreased with grazing abandonment in both habitats. Soil multifunctionality was indirectly mediated by the functional structure of size and leaf traits of the local plant communities, but our results suggested that macroscale grazing effects, i.e. translocation of nutrients by grazers among habitats via dung and urine deposition, might be important mechanisms that influence soil multifunctionality at the local level. Agri-environmental policies should be aware of the risk of widespread grazing abandonment and take advantage of the benefits of low-intensity grazing regimes for ecosystem services such as soil fertility and stability, and soil carbon storage.