Agricultural Subsidies should impact the environment negatively (as represented in real life). Run Off, Deoxygenation, soil pollution, should boost CO2 emissions etc.
Organic farming subsidies should have lower positive impact on environment. The decrease in intensity while beneficial to the local environment, requires cutting trees down to make space for the less intensive farms.
So, there should be some modelling for deforestation and a policy to prevent food waste, which would actually have a much better positive impact on the environment than organic farming subsidies.
Indeed, agriculture and letting the nature be doesn’t go well together~ but what if the farming is done in a desert area for example? Then it doesn’t pollute stuff anymore.
Beyond very bare subsistence farming, I don’t see much agriculture happening in deserts. Especially outside Oases. Additionally, I don’t think there are any desert nations in D4, except perhaps the northern parts of Canada which would be cold deserts. So, reduce impact on food price with agro subsidies in Canada as adjustments?
Then we get into organic farming. On the one hand, there is less chemical run off. However, those chemicals are used for a reason, and without them there is a lower food yield per area of land clearance, therefore more land clearance is required for the same food yield when restricted to organic farming. Thoughts?
Organic Farming still allows the use of chemicals, just in a more limited amount. The main use of land I think is the requirements for raising animals, who now need more land for a smaller output.
I agree with your point on food wastage. In the US, around a third of all food produced is wasted, so policies to discourage food wastage might be a good way to help the environment while keeping everyone happy. (Lower prices for consumers, no new regulations for farmers/business owners/capitalists, improved environment for environmentalists).
Farming in the desert may decrease pollution, but it can also lead to massive overuse of water and the depletion of local aquifers. That’s why the Middle East doesn’t farm. Getting the water would be too expensive. We can already see this phenomenon happening in California, where the planting of water intensive crops like rice has exacerbated water shortages and droughts in an area that isn’t even nominally a desert.
Water intensive crops could over time desertify the land or turn into a savannah.
I read somewhere (six degrees, Mark Lynas) that the sand dunes in the West (I don’t know about Cali and Oregon) are just under an inch of soil or something like that, and too much global warming and/or poor land use could bring back the nightmare of the dust bowl.