The economic and environmental impacts of precision agriculture and interactions with agro-environmental policy

J. Schieffer, C. Dillon

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

45 Scopus citations

Abstract

A whole-farm model was used to investigate the interacting effects of precision agriculture technology and agro-environmental policy on the production choices of a representative grain farm. Although some precision agriculture technologies did increase efficiency of resource use, they also decreased the effectiveness of policy, especially policies that rely on economic incentives (e.g., emission taxes). Precision agriculture can lead to higher marginal abatement costs in the form of forgone profits, decreasing producers’ responsiveness to those policies. Policy-makers targeting pollution reductions from agriculture should take into account the increasing use of precision agriculture techniques and their varying effects on agro-environmental policy.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)46-61
Number of pages16
JournalPrecision Agriculture
Volume16
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2014

Keywords

  • Agro-environmental policy
  • Auto-steer
  • Automatic section control
  • Variable rate application
  • Whole-farm modeling

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Agricultural and Biological Sciences (all)

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