Estimating Potential Economic Net Carbon Flux from U.S. Agriculture Using a High Resolution, Integrated, Socioeconomic-Biogeophysical Model

Estimation of the carbon abatement potential of a national carbon market upon U.S. agricultural lands is needed by climate analysts, policymakers, and carbon market brokers. A high resolution, integrated, socioeconomic-biogeophysical model is developed in this research by linking the economics of land management with spatial data on soils and land use. The economic component of the model functions at the county level with biophysical data at the sub-county level of resolution. The model is used to estimate changes in net carbon flux induced by incentives for conservation tillage on nine major crops. The economic potential reduction in net carbon flux at incentives of $500 per metric ton carbon (MtC) is estimated to be 18.92 million metric tons carbon (MMtC) below baseline, and 12.6 MMtC below baseline at an offered incentive of$125 per MtC. Results indicate that the Northern Great Plains, northern Corn Belt, and Mississippi Delta have the greatest economic potential for carbon abatement. Regions with significant amounts of acreage in hay have the greatest potential for gains in net soil carbon. Application of incentives based on soil sequestration potential leads to “leakage” in some regions where land is reallocated from low input practices to higher input practices. This analysis created an ideal opportunity to study the interactions of data resolution and analytical scale. When analyzing carbon abatement at the national scale, abatement estimations were similar using either high or low resolution data. But, if regional estimation is a goal, the geographic resolution of data must match or surpass the geographic scale of analysis, otherwise estimation errors will be large. Although validation using field-level data indicates that model results are not appropriate for fieldlevel estimation, it also indicates that the high resolution methodology developed here results in much smaller errors than lower resolution versions. Results indicate that there are many challenges to implementation, but if policymakers decide to implement a carbon abatement program using conservation tillage, either through a market-based mechanism or through government ‘green payments’, the methodology developed here could help reduce uncertainty in estimating regional abatement quantities

Closing the loop : accounting for development\u27s hidden environmental costs

The existence of pollution externalities hinders the market from signaling the true costs of transactions within the economy. Several authors have theoretically modeled the flow of materials and value between the human economy and the environment, but to date empirical input-output models have failed to fully account for pollution externalities. Regional development organizations have not included environmental costs in their decision making process because information on emissions is hard to find and value. This project develops and uses an input-output model of the East Tennessee economy in conjunction with sectoral pollution output data, a toxic risk index, and sectoral abatement costs to attempt to estimate the cost of four different development industry choices to East Tennessee. The target industries are auto part manufacturing, boat manufacturing , furniture manufacturing, and paper production. Multiple economic and environmental criteria are used to rank these industries. Paper production is found to be the least beneficial industry of the four to East Tennessee. Furniture is the next least beneficial. Boat and auto part manufacturing are ranked the most beneficial of the four for East Tennessee. The existence of pervasive externalities, future discounting, and uncertainty makes accounting for the total cost of pollution externalities an impossible task. This should not detour development organizations from ranking alternative industries by collecting as much available information on pollution output and its effects

A Farm-Level Evaluation of Conditions Under Which Farmers Will Supply Biomass Feedstocks for Energy Production

This study evaluated the risk management potential of including biomass crops as a diversification strategy for a grain farm in northwest Tennessee. Results indicate that adding biomass crops to the farm enterprise mix could improve mean net revenues and reduced net revenue variability.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Land Use Implications of Expanding Biofuel Demand

The Renewable Fuel Standard mandates in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 will require 36 billion gallons of ethanol to be produced in 2022. The mandates require that 16 of the 36 billion gallons must be produced from cellulosic feedstocks. The potential land use implications resulting from these mandates were examined using two methods, the POLYSYS model and a general equilibrium model. Results of the POLYSYS analysis indicated that 72.1 million tons of corn stover, 23.5 million tons of wheat straw, and 24.7 million acres would be used to produce 109 million tons of switchgrass in 2025 to meet the mandate. Results of the CGE analysis indicated that 10.9 billion bushels of corn grain, 71 million tons of corn stover, and 56,200 tons of switchgrass is needed to meet the mandate.cellulosic ethanol, corn stover, grain ethanol, renewable fuel standard, switchgrass, Crop Production/Industries, Demand and Price Analysis, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q15, Q42,

U.S. Billion-ton Update: Biomass Supply for a Bioenergy and Bioproducts Industry

The Report, Biomass as Feedstock for a Bioenergy and Bioproducts Industry: The Technical Feasibility of a Billion-Ton Annual Supply (generally referred to as the Billion-Ton Study or 2005 BTS), was an estimate of “potential” biomass within the contiguous United States based on numerous assumptions about current and future inventory and production capacity, availability, and technology. In the 2005 BTS, a strategic analysis was undertaken to determine if U.S. agriculture and forest resources have the capability to potentially produce at least one billion dry tons of biomass annually, in a sustainable manner—enough to displace approximately 30% of the country’s present petroleum consumption. To ensure reasonable confidence in the study results, an effort was made to use relatively conservative assumptions. However, for both agriculture and forestry, the resource potential was not restricted by price. That is, all identified biomass was potentially available, even though some potential feedstock would more than likely be too expensive to actually be economically available. In addition to updating the 2005 study, this report attempts to address a number of its shortcoming

Locational Advantage and the Impact of Scale: Comparing Local and Conventional Fruit and Vegetable Transportation Efficiencies

Some have suggested that in order for local foods to reach broader consumer segments and become price-competitive with foods sold in mainstream market channels, local farmers need to scale up their production and distribution operations to match the efficiencies of the conventional food system. In this study, we take a first step in evaluating how scaling up production and distribution could make locally produced foods more competitive with the conventional food system. We compare the transportation efficiencies of the conventional and local fruit and vegetable transportation networks in Knoxville, Tennessee, and determine the Knoxville-area food system's competitive transportation zones, defined as the region in which local farmers' shorter travel distances to market give them a locational advantage in transportation over their long distance, conventional food supply chain competitors. We analyze the extent to which local farmers' scales of production and distribution affect their transportation efficiencies, and we investigate factors that could improve their competitiveness with conventional distribution networks. We find that farms located within 25 miles (40 km) of the downtown market tended to deliver their produce to market at least as efficiently as conventionally distributed foods from California. More distant farms needed to scale up their production and distribution operations to remain within the competitive transportation zones. Investigating travel distance thresholds could provide policy-makers with useful information in planning land use and infrastructure investment projects for local food systems and in designating sustainable geographic boundaries for foodsheds and local food economies

Neighborhood Attitudes Toward Community Composting: Case of Knoxville, Tennessee

In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic created interest in home gardening as well as shortages in the availability of bulk and bagged compost at local garden centers and bagged compost at national retailers. Because of this shortage, several community groups organized four sites throughout the city of Knoxville, Tennessee, where residents could pick up compost at no cost. To assess the feasibility of long-term plans for community composting, a survey was conducted to determine community views on local composting. This report reviews the results of the survey sent out to neighborhood residents in Knoxville, Tennessee, between September 13, 2020, and November 3, 2020. The survey was solicited through text messages (from those who provided a phone number when they picked up compost) and the City of Knoxville Neighborhood Newsletter, asking for their views on community composting. Survey results indicate: • Most all respondents are supportive of having community compost in their neighborhoods. • Most all are willing to save home food scraps for community composting (94%). • Most would prefer the composting site to be within 1 mile (93%). • Respondents have a high willingness to volunteer at a community composting operation (78%). • 29% of respondents are willing to pay for food scrap pickup, with an average amount willing to pay $6.60 per week. • A majority of respondents would like to deliver food scraps to community composting themselves (53$2-$5 per 5-gallon bucket of finished compost. In evaluating the compost giveaway in the spring of 2020, the survey indicated: • Most participants traveled 1 to 5 miles to pick up compost (56%). • Most participants using compost were experienced gardeners and would have gardened regardless of the availability of the free compost

Economic Impact of Tennessee Forest Product Exports in 2021

U.S. forest product exports were negatively impacted by the U.S. trade war with China in 2018 and 2019, and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Muhammad and Taylor (2020) note that the pandemic had a significant impact on U.S. and Tennessee forest product exports due to supply and demand disruptions in the global market for finished wood products (e.g., furniture) and the interrelated market for raw materials and inputs (e.g., logs and lumber). These effects were in addition to the negative impact of China’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. timber (Muhammad et al., 2022). In 2021, U.S. companies expected a recovery due to the U.S. Phase One Trade Agreement with China signed on January 2020, which included exemptions from related retaliatory tariff for forest products shipped to China (Inouye, 2020). In addition, the lifting of pandemic-imposed measures such as port closures and shutdowns in construction and manufacturing suggested a recovery for U.S. exports overall (Susskind and Vines, 2020). In this report, we focus on the post-pandemic period and its impacts on Tennessee forest product exports. We examine the export changes in 2021 (relative to 2020) across destination countries and product categories, and further assess the full economic impact of export sales on income and jobs at the state level. The impacts of the trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic on U.S. and Tennessee forestry exports have been discussed in previous reports (Muhammad and Taylor, 2020; Muhammad and Smith, 2020; and Muhammad et al., 2022). Forest product exports from 2018 to 2021 at the national, regional and state level are reported in Table 1. From 2018 to 2020, U.S. forest product exports decreased by $2.2 billion. In 2021, however, exports increased by$2.1 billion when compared to the previous year. The increase was mostly in southern states ($829 million), followed by Western states ($677 million). The gains in 2021 were a welcomed recovery from the decrease in exports the previous years

Can Increasing Fuel Costs Make Locally Produced Food More Competitive?

Fresh produce in the United States often travels thousands of miles in diesel operated semi-trucks before arriving to market. Under a high fuel cost scenario, the current low cost, efficient supply chain could become a high cost organizational structure for US food distribution. Rising transportation costs of food sourced from distant locations may provide competitive opportunities for small- and mid-sized local producers if transportation costs are a smaller portion of their total costs. Farmers selling fresh produce in east Tennessee farmer markets are surveyed to obtain baseline information on their transportation energy use to deliver their products to market. Local farmers’ energy use is compared to three conventional transportation scenarios for fruits and vegetables grown in California, Texas, and Florida. A comparative analysis of conventional and local transportation energy consumption serves as an indicator of whether local farmers’ locational advantage in accessing nearby markets could open competitive opportunities over the conventional food supply chain in a high fuel cost scenario