Gross Domestic Product, the standard metric for measuring national economies, doesn’t account for the valuable services provided by nature. A new approach could help fill the gap.

The researchers found that farms with diverse crops planted together provide more secure, stable habitats for wildlife and are more resilient to climate change than the single-crop standard that dominates today’s agriculture industry.

The researchers set out to understand where nature contributes the most to people and how many people may be affected by future changes. By 2050, up to 5 billion people could be at higher risk of water pollution, coastal storms and underpollinated crops.

Expanding monoculture threatens valuable services from land, such as flood control and climate stabilization. A new approach promises to protect these benefits, while improving biodiversity and human livelihoods in rural areas.

In a speech at Stanford, Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado Quesada described a vision for the Central American country to phase out all carbon emissions by the year 2050.