Agroecology and Biodiversity: A Benchmark Dynamic Model

Conventional agriculture not only neglects but also harms the ecosystem services provided by biodiversity, inducing a negative feedback loop. In a theoretical inspired by agroforestry (“agriculture with trees”), a common agroecological practice in developing countries, we highlight how the choice between expanding agricultural land and retaining forest land is shaped by the bidirectional relationship between agriculture and biodiversity as well as the utility derived from biodiversity consumption. The static case shows that a high stock of biodiversity may be deliberately maintained as long as the agroecological productivity effect is important enough. This result holds in the dynamic case. However, in the latter case, a large intertemporal discount rate can lead to total biodiversity loss along with the full collapse of the economy. Another key implication of our model, among other results, is that the effect of a shift of consumer preferences toward agricultural goods (instead of biodiversity goods) on the biodiversity stock is much more ambiguous in the dynamic case than in the static case, depending on the strength on the agroecological productivity effect. These results have profound implications for biodiversity conservation.