A Comparative Analysis of Ecosystem Services Valuation in Alternative Agricultural Systems (Case of Dezful County, Khuzestan Province)

This study quantified and compared the economic value of ecosystem services in three agricultural systems (conventional, healthy food production, greenhouses) in Dezful county, Khuzestan province, Iran. This quantification was based on an experimental and field method from Sandhu et al., 2008. Accordingly, the yield of agricultural products was determined through market price, and for other services, non-market valuation methods were used. The results showed that the greenhouses systems with an average of 621 million Rials / hectare / year had highest the economic value of ecosystem services. However, more than half of amount of reported rate (425 million Rials/ ha/ year) was the market services and provisioning value of these agricultural systems which compatible with the production-driven approach in industrial agriculture. The highest non-market services are valued at the healthy production system (226 million Rials/ hectare/ year), which is greater than the total amount of production (157 million Rials/ hectare / year). The major portion of the value is gained by the role of this f system in job creation which is mostly ignored in the comparative assessments of agarin systems. This system also has the highest value for services of water and soil protection. Generally, healthy production systems obtained the second highest value after industrial greenhouses systems in terms of entire evaluated ecosystem services. Citrus gardens also have the highest non-market ecosystem services in both of the healthy and conventional systems (244 and 247 million Rials/ ha/ year, respectively). At the end, developing a multifunctional agriculture approach was recommended to optimize ecosystem services through policies and institutions that facilitate multifunctional agriculture be strengthened.