The economics of the Food versus Biodiversity debate
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Ecologists discuss the “food versus biodiversity” trade-offs in the fol-
lowing terms: what is the land use configuration that minimizes biodiver-
sity loss for a given food production target. This is, in economic terms, a
cost-effectiveness approach related to the concept of Pareto-efficiency in the
food-biodiversity outcomes map. This paper argues that economists should
participate in this debate. A first set of results shows how the introduction
of some basic micro-economic considerations modifies or reinforces the rec-
ommendations of the ecological literature on how to preserve biodiversity
while producing food. A second set of arguments emphasizes that it is not
necessarily sensible, from an economic point of view, to set the debate in
terms of food versus biodiversity. A wider, welfarist approach should be
used.