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Groundwater Protection Policy and Agricultural Production: A Recursive Stochastic Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2017

Brian P. Baker
Brian P. Baker*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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Abstract

Contamination of groundwater by agricultural practices presents a dilemma between protecting a vital resource and maintaining a valuable part of the economy. Policies to balance these objectives are presented. In addition to an historical baseline, policies that ban certain pesticides, taxes and subsidies, and control cultural practices are also considered. A model is developed to reflect the current state of agriculture in Eastern Suffolk County. This model consists of a recursive programming component, which has input for it generated by a stochastic model of Colorado potato beetle pest dynamics and management strategies to control those pests. While income is reduced by banning pesticides, the reduction is small when compared with the improvement in environmental quality. Further efforts to reduce pesticide use resulted in a reduction in potato acreage and incomes, as well as yields. Analysis concludes that improvements in both farm income and environmental quality could be achieved through the adoption of subsidies for low-input conservation crops.

Type
Articles
Information
Northeastern Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , October 1988 , pp. 131 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © 1988 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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Footnotes

The author wishes to acknowledge the help of David Allee, Richard Boisvert, Peter Berck, and David Zilberman. Much of the work was done while a graduate student at Cornell University.

References

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