Premium
The Social Returns of Agricultural Practices for Promoting Water Quality Improvement
Author(s) -
Vuuren W.,
Giraldez J. C.,
Stonehouse D. P.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
canadian journal of agricultural economics/revue canadienne d'agroeconomie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.505
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1744-7976
pISSN - 0008-3976
DOI - 10.1111/j.1744-7976.1997.tb00205.x
Subject(s) - agriculture , water quality , watershed , profit (economics) , productivity , environmental science , business , agricultural economics , water resource management , natural resource economics , economics , geography , ecology , macroeconomics , archaeology , machine learning , computer science , biology , microeconomics
Soil erosion leads to various degrees of soil productivity loss and to pollution when contaminants load into watercourses. Practices to conserve soil do not inevitably profit farmers; in fact, for most farmers they do not. Still, in most instances, they do yield net off‐farm gains. Especially when on‐farm net costs are involved, then for policy intervention purposes it becomes necessary to calculate the social return of such practices. Total off‐farm returns depend on the degree of water quality improvement made, the number of water uses and users in a watershed, and society's willingness to pay for such improvement. This paper explores a new method for calculating the degree of water quality change from a loading reduction and its impact on social return. In a case study application for an Ontario watershed, water was used for only two purposes: angling and conveyance. Moreover, the degree of water quality improvement made from sediment and phosphorus reduction through modified agricultural practices was slight. This was mainly because of the presence of pollutants not necessarily originating from agriculture that prevented a substantial increase in water quality. As a consequence, in this case, off‐farm benefits from such reductions were low. On the other hand, several agronomic practices resulted in positive on‐farm returns.