What are Ecosystem Services?
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Ryan Buetow
Extension Cropping Systems Specialist
Dickinson Research Extension Center
North Dakota State University
1041 State Avenue
701 456-1106
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What are Ecosystem Services?
While we often think of things on a field-by-field scale it is important to remember that our crop fields are part of a larger agroecosystem. These cropping systems have an impact on their surroundings (more than just the road ditch) and the surroundings have an impact on the cropping system. Not only is there a wide range of plant life within each field, but also on the microbial scale a variety of fungi, bacteria, and more along with insects, birds, and larger animals. The management of each field will have some form of impact on all of this diversity along with an impact on humans. An ecosystem service is the benefit that people obtain from ecosystems. In farming we typically focus mainly on the ability of the land to produce yield, however we are starting to become more and more aware of the different ways that are a little less tangible that we can benefit from how we act as stewards of the land. We need to continue to have a strong focus on food production, however we can do this while still working to adopt strategies that strengthen other ecosystem services. This concept helps us track and manage benefits that might be harder to pencil out with variance from year to year, but we know we are improving something on our operation. According to the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), most resource management decisions are strongly influenced by markets, however the nonmarketed benefits are often high and sometimes more valuable than the marketed ones. It is important to identify which ecosystem services are your cropping systems accomplishing well, and what are some ecosystem services could be improved.
References
Costanza, R., D’Arge, R., De Groot, R., Farber, S., Grasso, M., Hannon, B., Limburg, K., Naeem, S., O’Neill, R. V., Paruelo, J., Raskin, R. G., Sutton, P., and Van Den Belt, M. (1997). The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387:253–260.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. (2005). Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis. Island Press, Washington, DC.
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