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Integrated Accounting for Land, Soils and Agriculture in Uganda

27th meeting of the London Group on Environmental Accounting 2021

Steven King (UNEP-WCMC), Moses Masiga (ENRAC, Uganda), Mark Eigenraam (IDEEA), Carl Obst (IDEEA)

Integrating Natural Capital into Sustainable

Development Decision-Making in Uganda

A project funded by the UK Government

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Natural Capital and Agriculture in Uganda

Agriculture in Uganda contributes nearly one-quarter (23.7%) of GDP
73% of the aggregate employment in the country
Uganda Green Growth Development Strategy (UGGDS) highlights decline in natural capital poses a great threat to the sector
UGGDS and National Development Plan (NDP III) highlight need to enhance soil fertility and improve land use planning
UGGDS highlights agricultural expansion causes forest and wetland loss, with loss of ecosystem services and biodiversity

Mixed cropping of bananas, maize, cassava, beans and surrounding forests in the Kiboga district in Central Uganda. Credit: Bioversity International/B.

Ekesa via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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Integrated Accounts for Land, Soils and Agriculture

UGGDS and the NDP III identify Environmental-Economic Accounts as a fundamental information resource for planning development of agricultural
Land and Soil Improvement Accounts were compiled in response
Provide an integrated picture of the relationship between land use, soil fertility and agricultural production
Organised by Zonal Agricultural Research and Development Institute (ZARDI) areas

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Sequence of Accounts

In this diagram we present out sequence of accounts, the accounting theme is displayed in left, the source data in the middle and the accounts compiled in the right – the yellow boxes

For each ZARDI we start by compiling broad accounts of land cover based on IPCC land cover classes.

We use the cropland area from these accounts as the basis for developing thematic nutrient flow accounts, based on coefficients for different nutrient outflows and inflows. As we can see one of these outflows relates to nutrient supply and use due to crop uptake. These are derived based on cropping patterns for the ZARDIs.

Finally we develop a sequence of accounts that describe ecosystem services for physical and monetary supply and use of crops and livestock. These use actual production as a proxy for the ecosystem service. Extended accounts for subsequent consumption of these SNA Goods and Services have also been derived to understand more about the economic supply chains associated with the sector.

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Accounting Structures - Worked example for Ngetta ZARDI

Ngetta ZARDI is located in the north of the country in the central area
Relatively high rate of poverty at the district level
Communities here may be particularly vulnerable to impacts of land degradation and ecosystem service loss on livelihoods

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IPCC Land Cover Account

Here we see the typical land cover account – but we add two addition ‘analytical rows’ to the table.

These provide information on land cover flows related to the conversion of forest or wetland to cropland or settlement. These are useful as they help inform on progress towards national goals to increase the extent of both forest and wetland ecosystems.

Improvement flows: These are the gross land cover flows from cropland or settlements to forest or wetland over an accounting period.

Degradation flows: These are the gross land cover flows from forest or wetland to cropland or settlements over an accounting period

As we see in the degradation flows row, nearly 413,000 ha of cropland expansion has been due to conversion of forest or wetland

Clearly this is not indicative of progress towards these national targets and the ecosystem services they supply and biodiversity they support.

It is noted that the IPCC land cover classification was based on aggregating the national land use/cover classes, enabling the results to fit national policy needs

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Selected Items from Nutrient Flow Accounts

The cropland area refers to the extent of recorded in the IPCC land cover account
The planted area records the area planted by farmers based farm level surveys
The account shows the nutrient inflows were from inorganic and organic fertilisers, biological nitrogen fixation, crop residues and atmospheric deposition. The outflows were due to crop harvest (shown), soil erosion and leaching
The account reveals substantial nutrient imbalances across all macro-nutrients (here expressed in per hectare cropland terms)

This slide presents some selected information relevant to the nutrient flow accounts, the full accounts is on the background paper.

At the top - the cropland area refers to the extent recorded in the IPCC land cover account; the planted area records the area planted by farmers based farm level surveys.

These areas and associated coefficients inform nutrient additions from inorganic and organic fertilisers, biological nitrogen fixation, crop residues and atmospheric deposition.

The reductions are due to crop harvest, soil erosion and leaching. The crop harvest reductions are shown here for 2009 relates to nutrient supply and use due to crop uptake described in the sequence of accounts slide

The overall nutrient balance in per hectare terms can be derived from the nutrient flow accounts, and we see negative balances across all three macro-nutrients in the Ngetta ZARDI

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Transactions between ecosystems, economic units and consumers

The land cover accounts and nutrient flow accounts are intended to communicate the broad trends in the stocks of the natural capital
The flow of ecosystem services from cropland to the farmer (an economic unit) represent a transaction involving supply and use
To realise the monetary value of the ecosystem service, the farmer sells their harvest to consumers – the second transaction

The land cover accounts and nutrient flow accounts are intended to communicate the broad trends in the stocks of the natural capital (as shown in the left of this diagram)

Now we want to integrate this information with the flows of ecosystem services and associated benefits to the agricultural sector.

So cropland ecosystem services contributes to the production of crops by a framer (an economic unit), this represents a first transaction that is recorded in the ecosystem services accounts as shown in the diagram.

As the right hand side diagram shows, to realise a monetary value the farmer then sells the crops they produce to consumers, these transactions are recorded in extended accounting for SNA Goods & Services.

We structure are supply and use accounts reveal both sets of transactions and make the link to underlying natural capital stocks explicit.

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Supply and Use Accounts for Crop and Livestock Provisioning

Farmer (Ecosystem Service User / SNA Good Producer)

This slide presents parts of the supply and use accounts described in the previous slide

The left table is the Ecosystem Services Supply, here physical crop production is a proxy for the ecosystem service contribution from the cropland ecosystems

This service is used by the framer in their production process, (as shown in the blue middle box).

They then sell the crops to different consumers – households for final consumption and businesses for intermediate consumption and value addition. As shown in the right side table

We also include livestock production, largely associated with grassland grazing, to understand if trade-offs in production within the sector are occurring but more work is needed to refine how we account for this.

Again full accounts are provided in the background paper

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Key aggregates and indicators

	Key indicators	Ngetta	Relevance to agricultural planning
1	Stable cropland extent ((Cropland area 2005 - Reductions 2005 to 2015) / Cropland area 2005)	86%	Indicator of the stability of cropland under agricultural production. 100% suggest cropland remains productive over accounting period
2	Turnover in cropland (Cropland Additions + Reductions 2005 to 2015 / Cropland area 2005)	87%	Indicator of land turnover associated with shifting and expanding agriculture. High values indicate the spatial distribution of cropland is changing
3	Degradation flows as a % of net changes (2005 to 2015, land degradation flows in cropland / net change in cropland extent)	45%	Indicator of the impact of agricultural expansion on forest and wetland extent and associated species habitat and ecosystem services.
4	Cropland use efficiency (2018, Area planted / cropland area)	39%	Indicator of cropland use intensity. Low values indicate large areas of cropland are not planted. >1 indicates intensive use of cropland area (area planted > crop land area). Care is needed to understand if intensity is sustainable (i.e., does it imply nutrient mining, is there sufficient water, appropriate crop rotation).
5	NPK balance (2018, kg / ha cropland / yr)	-42 kg / ha / yr	Indicator of macro-nutrient mining and need for improved soil fertility management
6	Relative change in physical crop production (Net change 2009 to 2018)	48%	Indicator of trend in crop output. Negative values (or values below population increase) point to potential emerging food security issues or shifts to agricultural production to satisfy local food needs.
7	Relative change in value of crop production (2009 to 2018)	178%	Indicator of trend in economic performance of the sector (need to be adjusted for constant prices)
8	Business consumption / total consumption (2018)	22%	Indicator to communicate the proportion of agricultural production that is intermediate consumption (i.e., that enters a value addition process and creates associated employment opportunities). If it is very high, this may indicate a shortage of food for local final consumption and potential food security issues.

In order to be useful to decision-makers, the accounts need to yield indicators that can inform planning in the agricultural sector

This table provides an illustration of 8 key aggregates and indicators that can be obtained from the accounts, with results for Ngetta ZARDI

Go through table….Indicator 1, stable cropland extent reveals the proportion of opening extent of cropland that remains cropland at the end of the accounting period. High values suggest cropland is remaining productive.

2 – Turnover is the ratio of gross change in cropland to opening extent, communicates on the level turnover in croplands. Closer to zero implies that the same areas of cropland are still being used over the accounting period. Higher values suggest shifting agricultural practices with potential impacts on natural ecosystems, their service they supply and associated biodiversity.

And these are the main findings we are keen to discuss with the London group

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Discussion questions

What are the groups general thoughts on the structure of the accounts and tables presented?
What are the groups general thoughts on the aggregates and indicators presented in table on the previous slide and are there any further key indicators that could be used for decision-making?
What additional extensions could be developed?

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https://www.unep-wcmc.org/featured-projects/nca-in-Uganda

Integrating Natural Capital into Sustainable

Development Decision-Making in Uganda

A project funded by the UK Government

Thank you for listening!