Agricultural policy in developing countries focuses on productivity and livelihoods while paying little attention to environmental sustainability. In the long-run, both the environment and the poor suffer. Innovative policy that captures environmental values in agriculture alongside institutional improvements are needed to balance trade-offs between agricultural benefits and environmental costs.

Charles Palmer
Institute for Environmental Decisions, ETH Zurich
Chair of Environmental Policy and Economics, Zurich, Switzerland
charles.palmer@env.ethz.ch