[The economic and environmental issues of farming]
2008
Golubev, A.V.
The negative environmental effect of farming caused by soil fertility reduction, erosion and agrochemical residuals in farm products entails a crop yield decline, worsens food quality and safety, i.e. evokes negative economic and social consequences. On the other hand, agrochemicals provide output growth and profitability through gaining 1.4-4.3 roubles of additional income per 1 rouble invested. Moreover, they contribute to fertility conservation. Therefore, an environmental (ENA) and a social (SA) assessments are as important as an economic assessment (ECA) during farming intensification. In this connection, a simplified integrated assessment procedure has been developed for measuring the effectiveness of fertilizer and agrochemical application, as well as for that of irrigated farming, crop cultivation and animal production. The procedure accounts the economic, environmental and social implications of technologies. The main indicator for ENA is a net revenue resulted from fertilizer or agrochemical application. ENA is calculated based on crop yield and fertility change. The latter implies humus and nutrient content in the soil. SA is determined by national income change per capita. Moreover, the author introduces the term of "moral amortization of soil economic fertility" whereby cost of production exceeds that on the worst farmland. Besides, a new approach for the forage crop ENA is suggested based on the output of animal products per 1 feed unit. Based on the above-mentioned frameworks, the book represents an integrated comparative assessment of crop production technologies, applied in the Saratov region, identifies the determinants of irrigated farming effectiveness improvement, optimizes the livestock population and arable land use for a farm
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