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Recreation 46w ww ww w. .f fr ro on nt ti ie er rs si in ne ec co ol lo og gy y. .o or rg g © © The Ecological Society of America A gricultural lands supply many ecosystem services desired by society, beyond merely providing food and fiber (Clay 2004). Cultivated lands and grazing systems account for nearly 50% of the global land surface (Asner et al. 2004; MA 2004). Although agriculture produces food and fiber often at the expense of biodiversity, water quality, and soil conservation (eg Bennett and Balvanera 2007;Kareiva et al. 2007), alternative policies and management of these lands could increase the provision of multiple ecosystem services (Boody et al. 2005;Robertson and Swinton 2005;Swinton et al. 2006).Agri-environmental programs that are designed to increase provision of environmental services from agricultural land rarely pay directly for the documented services produced. Rather, they either offer subsidies or cost-sharing for implementing best management practices (BMPs) or taking land out of production, or use regulations to limit adverse environmental effects (Feather et al. 1999;Kleijn and Sutherland 2003). Government programs often provide incentives to adopt agency-prescribed management practices without determining whether the desired environmental benefits are achieved ). An alternative approach is to pay directly for environmental services produced through Pay-forEnvironmental Services (PES) programs (Ferraro and Kiss 2002;Pagiola et al. 2004Pagiola et al. , 2007Wunder et al. 2008). These programs draw from the concept of valuing ecosystem services (eg Daily et al. 2000; Tallis and Karieva 2005;Brown et al. 2007), although designing workable PES programs from this concept is a distant reality.Of the many policy and technical requirements of PES programs, first and foremost is the need to identify environmental services valued by buyers who are willing and able to pay for them. The theory is that by focusing on environmental results and not just practices, market-like programs will encourage producer-sellers to innovate and seek cost efficiencies in providing services ( There is growing interest in implementing market-like programs that would pay farmers and ranchers for producing environmental services (beyond those that generate food and fiber) from working agricultural lands. I In n a a n nu ut ts sh he el ll l: :• There is increasing interest in developing Pay-forEnvironmental Services (PES) programs to encourage the provision of multiple ecosystem services from agricultural lands, but few examples of such programs exist • The Florida Ranchlands Environmental Services Project (FRESP) has been designing a PES program in which state agencies pay ranchers for producing environmental serviceswater storage and reduced phosphorus loading -on private ranchlands in south-central Florida • The PES concept in FRESP differs from traditional cost-share or conservation programs, in that the intent is to pay ranchers for providing documented environmental services, rather than to offer cost-sharing opti...

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Agriculture in the United States must respond to escalating demands for productivity and efficiency, as well as pressures to improve its stewardship of natural resources. Growing global population and changing diets, combined with a greater societal awareness of agriculture's role in delivering ecosystem services beyond food, feed, fiber, and energy production, require a comprehensive perspective on where and how US agriculture can be sustainably intensified, that is, made more productive without exacerbating local and off‐site environmental concerns. The USDA's Long‐Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network is composed of 18 locations distributed across the contiguous United States working together to integrate national and local agricultural priorities and advance the sustainable intensification of US agriculture. We explore here the concept of sustainable intensification as a framework for defining strategies to enhance production, environmental, and rural prosperity outcomes from agricultural systems. We also elucidate the diversity of factors that have shaped the past and present conditions of cropland, rangeland, and pastureland agroecosystems represented by the LTAR network and identify priorities for research in the areas of production, resource conservation and environmental quality, and rural prosperity. Ultimately, integrated long‐term research on sustainable intensification at the national scale is critical to developing practices and programs that can anticipate and address challenges before they become crises. Core Ideas The LTAR network was established to enhance the sustainability of US agriculture. The LTAR “common experiment” compares business as usual with aspirational management. LTAR sites contribute research observations to the network's database. LTAR network research will support sustainable intensification strategies.