Economic evaluation of environmental abatement strategies in animal industries

Abstract

In recent, animal industries are faced with the challenge to meet economic viability for animal production while reducing the environmental impacts. For the implementation of the environmental abatement strategies, it is important as the first step to quantify the cost-effectiveness of such strategies. This study showed the rationale of the two types of marginal abatement costs, 1) represented as a change in profit per environmental load at individual level and 2) marginal abatement cost represented by a change in profit per kg of product per environmental load intensity, and 3) the cost-effective analysis for a change in total profit calculated by considering rescaling with the number of animals under environmental restriction at farm. The present analysis provided a simple theoretical framework for both economic and environmental consideration on sustainable animal production. Finally, the policy options to mitigate environmental loads from animal industries were discussed.