Appraising Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Potentials: Effects of Alternative Assumptions

Soil carbon sequestration, Sink dynamics, Mathematical programming, Land use, Optimization, Agriculture, Forestry, Greenhouse gas mitigation

IMPLICATIONS OF A CARBON BASED ENERGY TAX FOR U.S. AGRICULTURE

Policies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions are likely to increase the prices for fossil fuel based energy. Higher energy prices would raise farmers' expenditure on machinery fuels, irrigation water, farm chemicals, and grain drying. To compute the economic net impacts of increased farm input costs on agricultural production after market adjustment, we employ a price endogenous sector model for United States agriculture. Results show little impact on net farm income in the intermediate run.Agricultural Sector Model, Energy Tax, Greenhouse Gas, Emission Reduction

Implications of a Carbon-Based Energy Tax for U.S. Agriculture

Policies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions are likely to increase energy prices. Higher energy prices raise farmer costs for diesel and other fuels, irrigation water, farm chemicals, and grain drying. Simultaneously, renewable energy options become more attractive to agricultural producers. We consider both of these impacts, estimating the economic and environmental consequences of higher energy prices on U.S. agriculture. To do this we employ a price-endogenous agricultural sector model and solve that model for a range of carbon-tax-based energy price changes. Our results show mostly positive impacts on net farm income in the intermediate run. Through market price adjustments, fossil fuel costs are largely passed on to consumers. Additional farm revenue arises from the production of biofuels when carbon taxes reach $30 per ton of carbon or more. Positive environmental benefits include not only greenhouse gas emission offsets but also reduced levels of nitrogen leaching.energy tax, greenhouse gas policy, U.S. agricultural sector, bioenergy, mathematical programming, Environmental Economics and Policy,

MEASURING ABATEMENT POTENTIALS WHEN MULTIPLE CHANGE IS PRESENT: THE CASE OF GREENHOUSE GAS MITIGATION IN U.S. AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY

Mathematical programming is used to examine the economic potential of greenhouse gas mitigation strategies in U.S. agriculture and forestry. Mitigation practices are entered into a spatially differentiated sector model and are jointly assessed with conventional agricultural production. Competition among practices is examined under a wide range of hypothetical carbon prices. Simulation results demonstrate a changing portfolio of mitigation strategies across carbon price. For lower prices preferred strategies involve soil and livestock options, higher prices, however, promote mainly afforestation and biofuel generation. Results demonstrate the sensitivity of individual strategy potentials to assumptions about alternative opportunities. Assessed impacts also include market shifts, regional strategy diversity, welfare distribution, and environmental co-effects.Abatement Function, Agricultural Sector Model, Carbon Sequestration, Economic Potential, Greenhouse Gas Emission, Mathematical Programming, Multiple Technical Change, Policy Simulation

Duration discrimination in younger and older adults

Ten normal hearing young adults and ten older adults were asked to identify the longer of two sequentially presented tones. The duration of the standard tones ranged from 1.5 ms to 1000 ms across blocks. Duration discrimination was not related to audiometric thresholds. These results show that older adults are much more disadvantaged than young adults when discriminating very short durations (i.e., below 40 ms) that are characteristic of speech sounds, and that this disadvantage cannot be accounted for by hearing levels

Pesticide externalities from the US agricultural sector -- The impact of internalization, reduced pesticide application rates, and climate change

Pesticides used in agricultural production affect environmental quality and human health. These external costs can amplify due to climate change because pest pressure and optimal pesticide application rates vary with weather and climate conditions. This study uses mathematical programming to examine alternative assumptions about regulations of external costs from pesticide applications in US agriculture. We use two climate projections given by the Canadian and Hadley climate models. The impacts of the internalization of the pesticide externality and climate change are assessed both independently and jointly. We find that, without external cost regulation, climate change benefits from increased agricultural production in the US may be more than offset by increased environmental costs. The internalization of the pesticide externalities increase farmers’ production costs but increase farmers’ income because of price adjustments and associated welfare shifts from consumers to producers. Our results also show that full internalizations of external pesticide costs substantially reduces preferred pesticide applications rates for corn and soybeans as climate change.climate change impacts, pesticide externalities, farm management adaptation, agricultural sector model, welfare maximization, environmental policy analysis, mathematical programming, United States

Agricultural adaptation to climate policies under technical change

This study uses a partial equilibrium model of the US agricultural sector to examine how technical progress and carbon price levels affect land management adaptation. We find that the climate policy range, over which a more extensive agriculture is preferred, decreases as crop yields increase. Second, technical progress with traditional crops offers less mitigation benefits than progress with mitigation options themselves. Third, while agricultural producers benefit from technical progress on energy crops, they fare worse if technical progress improves traditional crops and low carbon prices.Technical Change, Producer Adaptation, Agricultural Sector Model, Carbon Sequestration, Mathematical Programming, Climate Policy Simulation

Aggregation and Calibration of Agricultural Sector Models Through Crop Mix Restrictions and Marginal Profit Adjustments

All agricultural sector models must deal with aggregation and calibration somehow. The aggregation problem involves treating a group of producers as if they all responded in the same way as a single representative unit. The calibration problem concerns making a model reproduce as closely as possible an empirically observed set of decision maker actions. This paper shows how both calibration and aggregation are addressed through crop mix restrictions combined with marginal profit adjust-ments.mathematical programming, aggregation, calibration, crop mix, marginal cost, agricultural sector model, Agribusiness, C6, C61, Q1, Q11, Q17, Q18, R12, R13, R14,

The Potential of U.S. Agriculture and Forestry to Mitigate Greenhouse Gas Emissions: An Agricultural Sector Analysis

Mathematical programming is used to examine the economic potential of greenhouse gas mitigation strategies in U.S. agriculture and forestry. Mitigation practices are entered into a spatially differentiated sector model and are jointly assessed with conventional agricultural production. Competition among practices is examined under a wide range of hypothetical carbon prices. Simulation results demonstrate a changing portfolio of mitigation strategies across carbon prices. For lower prices, preferred strategies involve soil and livestock options; higher prices, however, promote mainly afforestation and biofuel generation. Results demonstrate the sensitivity of individual strategy potentials to assumptions about alternative opportunities. Assessed impacts also include market shifts, regional strategy diversity, welfare distribution, and environmental co-effects

Economic Potential of Biomass-Based Fuels for Greenhouse Gas Emission Mitigation

Use of biofuels diminishes fossil fuel combustion, thereby also reducing net greenhouse gas emissions. However, subsidies are needed to make agricultural biofuel production economically feasible. To explore the economic potential of biofuels in a greenhouse gas mitigation market, the authors incorporate data on production and biofuel processing for the designated energy crops--switchgrass, hybrid poplar, and willow--in a U.S. Agricultural Sector Model, along with data on traditional crop-livestock production and processing, and afforestation of cropland. Net emission coefficients on all included agricultural practices are estimated through crop growth simulation models or are taken from the literature. The authors simulate potential emission mitigation policies or markets using hypothetical carbon prices ranging between $0 and$500 per ton of carbon equivalent. At each carbon price level, the Agricultural Sector Model computes the new market equilibrium, revealing agricultural commodity prices, regionally specific production, input use, welfare levels, environmental impacts, and adoption of alternative management practices such as biofuel production. Results indicate there is no role for biofuels below carbon prices of $50 per ton of carbon equivalent. At these incentive levels, emission reductions through reduced soil tillage and afforestation are more cost efficient. At carbon prices above$50, however, biofuels become increasingly important, and at prices above $180 they dominate all other agricultural strategies