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Marginal Abatement Costs of Reducing Groundwater-N Pollution with Intensive and Extensive Farm Management Choices

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2016

Emmanuel K. Yiridoe  and
Alfons Weersink
Emmanuel K. Yiridoe
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Business Management, Nova Scotia Agricultural College
Alfons Weersink
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics and Business, University of Guelph
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Abstract

Cost-effectiveness is an important consideration in evaluating choices for meeting environmental quality objectives. Estimated crop yield response functions and the associated groundwater-nitrate pollution production functions were used to evaluate the optimal N fertilization and on-farm abatement costs for alternative cropping systems, with management choices at both the intensive and extensive margins. The cost-effective corn production system, which meets the Health Canada standard for nitrates with the highest returns ($278 ha–1) and lowest on-farm abatement cost ($248 ha–1), was a four-year corn-corn-soybean-wheat rotation under conventional tillage. At contaminant limits above the Health Canada standard, the cost-effective wheat cropping system shifted from a soybean-wheat rotation under no-tillage to a corn-soybean-wheat rotation under no-tillage.

Type
Articles
Information
Agricultural and Resource Economics Review , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , October 1998 , pp. 169 - 185
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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