Suchergebnisse

AbstractDescriptions of agricultural producers' participation in nutrient trading schemes generally refer to crop producers reducing nutrient run‐off from fields to generate credits. However, livestock producers may participate differently than crop producers because some are regulated as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), and because agricultural producers generating manure face different costs of reducing nutrient application (and therefore generating credits) from those only using fertilizer. These differences may affect nutrient reduction credit prices and the supply of agriculturally supplied credits, thereby raising the costs to non‐agricultural operations of meeting water quality goals. We examine how CAFO laws interact with nutrient trading requirements. We model trading participation by farm type and then simulate trading participation by applying the model to 2007 Census of Agriculture data.

While a recent paper by Cox in this journal uses as its motivating factor the benefits of quantitative risk assessment, its content is entirely devoted to critiquing Sneeringer's article in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. Cox's two main critiques of Sneeringer are fundamentally flawed and misrepresent the original article. Cox posits that Sneeringer did A and B, and then argues why A and B are incorrect. However, Sneeringer in fact did C and D; thus critiques of A and B are not applicable to Sneeringer's analysis.

Abstract
Research empirically estimating the effects of regulation on economic activity is largely focused on manufacturing, while generally overlooking one of the major polluters in the U.S. – commercial agriculture. Further, the prior literature generally does not estimate the pollution effects associated with regulation, making it difficult to assess the relative social costs and benefits of government action. This article considers a specific set of state policies to examine the results of environmental regulations in the agricultural sector, providing estimates of the magnitude of effects on production as well as pollution. During the 1990's, North Carolina's hog production more than tripled after passage of welcoming state legislation. I find that North Carolina's laws led to an additional 11% increase per year in pork industry presence in North Carolina relative to the rest of the U.S., as well as a 10% increase per county per year in ambient air pollution. Through a series of falsification tests and examinations of alternative hypotheses, I conclude that the air pollution is attributable to the industry; a doubling of production yields a 92% increase in ambient air pollution. The magnitude of the changes in air pollution is large enough to result in significant public health effects, totaling in cost to at least 12% of North Carolina's hog production revenue.

AbstractThe development of alternative animal health products is one way to reduce antibiotic use in agriculture. However, little economic research is directed at animal pharma. While programs to incentivize research and development (R&D) for human drugs have been adopted, analogous programs in veterinary pharma are only at the proposal stage. We describe the broad "push" and "pull" incentive mechanisms for human pharma, and analyze the differences in employing these in veterinary pharma. Using newly compiled data on veterinary drug approvals and firm‐level R&D, we also present data on trends in drug development for veterinary pharma.

AbstractA nutrient management plan (NMP) specifies recommended practices to match applied nutrients with crops' uptake capacity. Because monitoring nutrient applications is difficult, regulators instead oversee NMP adoption. In this paper we examine whether having NMPs make hog farms more likely to adopt nutrient management practices. We estimate nutrient application and uptake rates to assess whether operations with NMPs are less likely to over‐apply nutrients. Using an endogenous treatment effects model to control for potential confounding and selection bias, we find that NMPs are positively correlated with the adoption of nutrient management practices, as well as with the reduced application of excess nutrients.

AbstractWe evaluate whether expanding compliance to include nitrogen management could be an effective tool to reduce excess nitrogen applications in the Mississippi and Atchafalaya River Basin (MARB). Compliance requires farmers to meet some minimum standard of environmental protection on environmentally sensitive land as a condition for receiving federal farm program benefits. Using farm‐level data on "excess" nitrogen applications and program benefits, we estimate the level of compliance and the reduction in excess nitrogen applications to cropland in the MARB. Extending compliance provisions to nitrogen management could reduce excess applications up to 60% under ideal conditions.

AbstractU.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policies fully implemented in 2017 ended the use of "medically important" (pertinent for human disease treatment) antibiotics for livestock growth promotion purposes. Between 2015 and 2017, medically important antibiotics sales for food animal production declined by 43%, after steady growth between 2009 and 2015. We examine the impacts of the antibiotics sales decline on livestock producers and veterinarians using case studies and empirical event studies. We find that the drop in sales did not impact overall meat production and that livestock producers engaged more heavily with their veterinarians to implement better management strategies.