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REDUCING THE NITROGEN INPUT ON ARABLE FARMS
Author(s) -
England R. A.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.157
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1477-9552
pISSN - 0021-857X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1477-9552.1986.tb00313.x
Subject(s) - arable land , gross margin , profitability index , cropping , nitrogen , economics , profit (economics) , margin (machine learning) , profit margin , agricultural economics , mathematics , econometrics , environmental science , range (aeronautics) , agricultural science , agronomy , agricultural engineering , agriculture , microeconomics , computer science , chemistry , geography , engineering , archaeology , finance , organic chemistry , machine learning , aerospace engineering , biology
Nitrogen response curves derived from experimental data are used with a profit maximising condition to obtain optimum N rates, yields and gross margin losses for a range of nitrogen and cereal prices. These results are used with a linear programming model of an arable farm to estimate changes in the optimal cropping allocation and hence the farm scale effects of relative price changes. Total nitrogen applied is found to have a limited response: a doubling of the N price reduces the total used by between 24% and 10% depending on the availability of low‐N break‐crops. Cereal price changes reduce profitability severely before having any significant effect on N use.