Abstract Agroecological practices have been shown to control erosion, increase soil fertility, carbon stocks, pollination and biodiversity. As a consequence, these ecosystem services can contribute to a better farm economic resilience on the long-term; however, empirical evidence is scarce. In this study we aim to understand the economic performance of agroecological practices in almond orchards and the relevance of different economic and policy scenarios to incentivise the upscaling of agroecological practices. We investigated the development of the net present value (NPV) of several agroecological practices (no tillage (NT), green manure (GM) and compost (CM)) as compared to conventional tillage (CT), as well as the effect of internalising externalities through payments for soil carbon sequestration and by costs of erosion. Finally, we explored the effects of price premiums and public greening payments, on farm NPV. We found that all management regimes were profitable and that CM had a 17.2% higher NPV than CT, while both GM and NT had lower NPV than CT (69% for GM and 90.1% for NT). We found that despite NT and GM have higher soil organic carbon stocks, these provided a negligible additional income via carbon markets. CT had the highest externality costs of erosion but still its NPV was higher than NT and GM, despite the strong reductions in costs of erosion in NT and GM conferred by vegetation covers. We found that a price premium of 45% was necessary to make NT's economic performance comparable to that of CT, while a 27% price premium would be needed to make GM comparable to CT. Compensation through public greening payments would be in the order of €644 ha−1 y−1 for NT and €387 ha−1 y−1 for GM to have a similar NPV as CT. Our results suggest a trade-off between income from yield and costs from unaccounted externalities. We also find that private and public policy incentives could reverse this outcome, but requiring a large investment. Of the analysed agroecological practices, compost application appears the most promising to be scaled-up to improve both economic and environmental performance, and further research is needed to determine the outcomes of a combination of compost and vegetation covers.

中文翻译：

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西班牙东南部农业生态管理下杏仁农场的盈利能力：考虑外部性和机会成本

摘要 农业生态实践已被证明可以控制侵蚀、增加土壤肥力、碳储量、授粉和生物多样性。因此，从长远来看，这些生态系统服务有助于提高农场的经济弹性；然而，经验证据很少。在这项研究中，我们旨在了解杏仁果园生态农业实践的经济表现，以及不同经济和政策情景在激励农业生态实践升级方面的相关性。我们调查了几种农业生态实践（免耕 (NT)、绿肥 (GM) 和堆肥 (CM)）与传统耕作 (CT) 相比的净现值 (NPV) 的发展，以及内在化的影响通过支付土壤碳封存和侵蚀成本产生的外部性。最后，我们探讨了价格溢价和公共绿化费用对农场 NPV 的影响。我们发现所有管理制度都是有利可图的，CM 的 NPV 比 CT 高 17.2%，而 GM 和 NT 的 NPV 都低于 CT（GM 为 69%，NT 为 90.1%）。我们发现，尽管 NT 和 GM 具有较高的土壤有机碳储量，但它们通过碳市场提供的额外收入可以忽略不计。CT 具有最高的侵蚀外部性成本，但其 NPV 仍高于 NT 和 GM，尽管植被覆盖赋予 NT 和 GM 的侵蚀成本大幅降低。我们发现，要使 NT 的经济表现与 CT 相媲美，需要 45% 的价格溢价，而要使 GM 与 CT 相媲美，则需要 27% 的价格溢价。通过公共绿化支付的补偿将是 NT 的 644 ha-1 y-1 和 GM 的 387 ha-1 y-1 欧元，以获得与 CT 相似的 NPV。我们的结果表明，收益收入与未考虑外部性的成本之间存在权衡。我们还发现，私人和公共政策激励措施可以扭转这一结果，但需要大量投资。在分析的农业生态实践中，堆肥应用似乎最有希望扩大规模以改善经济和环境绩效，需要进一步研究以确定堆肥和植被覆盖相结合的结果。我们还发现，私人和公共政策激励措施可以扭转这一结果，但需要大量投资。在分析的农业生态实践中，堆肥应用似乎最有希望扩大规模以改善经济和环境绩效，需要进一步研究以确定堆肥和植被覆盖相结合的结果。我们还发现，私人和公共政策激励措施可以扭转这一结果，但需要大量投资。在分析的农业生态实践中，堆肥应用似乎最有希望扩大规模以改善经济和环境绩效，需要进一步研究以确定堆肥和植被覆盖相结合的结果。