Abstract

Agriculture supplies provisioning services- food, fodder, fuel, timber, medicine and ornamental in ecosystem service parlance. Management of ecosystem services is vital to maintain and improve the productivity of agricultural systems in order to meet the food demands of the growing human population. However, conventional management practices can severely reduce the ecological and financial contribution of agriculture, which in the longer term can offset the ability of farming to produce large amounts of commodities for more economic return. In the current work, a novel bottom-up experimental approach is used to quantify the economic value of provisioning ecosystem services between conventional and organic agriculture fields inKuruvinatham and Soriankuppam villages of Bahour commune, Puducherry during September 2008 to October 2010; we investigated 30 farms - 15 Organic and 15 Conventional agricultural fields with varying species composition and degree of commercialization. Data were gathered through interviews among selected farmers and we identified 51 species utilized a food, fodder, fuel, timber and medicine. Species retention is governed by species relative importance. Conventional fields were found to be less diverse with reduced density resulting in low annual gross income. Thus it has less ecological and socioeconomic advantages, as compared to organic fields. Practice of traditional organic agriculture systems plays significant roles in both ecological and economic terms by livelihood improvement, biodiversity conservation, soil fertility enhancement and poverty reduction. Therefore it is important to conserve and promote organic agriculture to achieve sustainable production and economic terms.

Key words: Organic agriculture, conventional agriculture, provisioning services, sustainability, Income generation.