The TEEBAgriFood initiative seeks to provide a comprehensive economic evaluation of the “eco-agri-food systems” complex, and demonstrate that the economic environment in which farmers operate is distorted by significant externalities, both negative and positive, and a lack of awareness of dependency on natural, human and social capital.
TEEBAgriFood brings together scientists, economists, policymakers, business leaders, and farmers organizations in order to frame, undertake and use holistic evaluations of agricultural systems, practices, products, policy scenarios against a comprehensive range of impacts and dependencies across food value chains. It makes and illustrates the case for “systems thinking” instead of “silo thinking” when evaluating eco-agri-food systems.
The below diagram illustrates the interrelationships and interdependencies (many of which are economically invisible) between human systems, agriculture and food systems, and natural systems. This is the broad and complex space in which TEEBAgriFood operates, seeking to better recognize, demonstrate and capture the full range of impacts and dependencies in order to reform policy to improve human livelihoods, human well-being and human health.
