Effects of Commodity Program Structure on Resource Use and the Environment

Agricultural commodity policies have a direct impact on farmers’ production decisions, and farmers’ production decisions in turn affect the agro-ecosystem and the larger natural environment. The literature that addresses various aspects of the many potential interactions between agriculture and the environment through these linkages is diverse. The literature on soil erosion externalities and their management is the most extensively researched (see for example Loehr et al. 1978). In this literature, agricultural production practices and soil transport models are linked. The fisheries literature is another area in which economic models are combined with physical and biological models. For example, Capalbo (1986) linked the neoclassical model of the firm with a fisheries population growth model to analyze common property renewable resource issues. Anderson et al. (1985) addressed site-specific pesticide contamination of ground-water with a combination of physical and economic models. The chapters in Part III of this Volume also address various empirical relationships between agriculture and the environment.