Environmental costs of China’s food security

Norse, David; Ju, Xiaotang

doi:10.1016/j.agee.2015.02.014

Cited by 188 publications

(92 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…Ecological damages associated with livestock production have been intensively investigated worldwide because onsite nutrient release, nitrous oxide emissions from animal wastes such as manure, threats to biodiversity, and soil acidification, among others are important sources influencing our environment [2].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Design of Policy Instruments towards Sustainable Livestock Production in China: An Application of the Choice Experiment Method

Pan

2016

Sustainability

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Abstract:In face of gradual ecological deterioration, the Chinese government has been in search of more efficient and effective mitigation policies, aiming to promote the sustainability of livestock production. However, researchers and policy makers seem to neglect a key issue: pinpoint policies are the most important, which means niche targeting is the premise before any policy design, such that better knowing of the livestock farmers preference is prerequisite. This paper then analyzes this question using a method of choice experiment to elicit the farmers' preference and valuation of livestock pollution control policy instruments at household-scale, medium-scale and large-scale farms. Five attributes (technology regulation, pollution charge, biogas subsidy, manure price, and information provisioning) were set as livestock pollution control policy instruments. In total, 754 pigs farmers from five representative provinces in China were surveyed, and the collected data were analyzed using random parameter logit models. The marginal substitution rates for attributes are estimated both with preference space approach and willingness to pay space approach. The results show significant heterogeneities in farmers' preferences and valuations for livestock pollution control policy instruments within the three scales. All policy instruments effectively increased the manure eco-friendly treatment ratio for medium-scale farms, and household-scale farms showed little change in the manure eco-friendly treatment ratio under all policy instruments. Household-scale farms and medium-scale farms suggested the highest preference for the biogas subsidy policy, while large-scale farms suggested the highest preference for the manure price policy.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Design of Policy Instruments towards Sustainable Livestock Production in China: An Application of the Choice Experiment Method

Pan

2016

Sustainability

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“…The cost is directed at the health impact, excluding the complexity of environmental degradation and biodiversity loss. Since the costs of environmental depletion and degradation are in the range of 4% to 9% of gross national income [18], our result, which indicates that health costs were approximately 0.5% of the agriculture output, is acceptable. However, our result is also probably conservative, considering the complexities of assigning values to the coefficients of nutrient conversion and loss, contamination generation dose, emergy transformity, and the scarcity of local data.…”

Section: Limitations and Uncertaintiesmentioning

confidence: 68%

“…It is important for the policy makers to carry out some actions to optimize the current agricultural framework. Sustainable intensification agriculture must be brought about by developing environment-smart technology [18]; for example, fertilizer efficiency improving technology, soil testing and fertilizer recommendation technology, fertilizer mechanical deep ploughing technology, and fertilizer organic composite technology. The imbalance of fertilizer consumption among regions can lead to the inefficiency of fertilizer utilization.…”

Section: Policy Implicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a country with area of 9.6 million km 2 , the spatial variation of these costs is also unknown. [14] 2011 European Union 27 countries Environmental costs of nitrogen overuse US $79-362 billion [15] 2006 Sahel Health costs of pesticide US $1.70 per hectare [16] 2020 China Environmental costs of nitrogen overuse US $5 billion [17] 2015 China Environmental costs of food production US $32-67 billion [18] 2002 China Environmental costs of fertilizer nitrogen emissions US $57 billion [19] 2008 China Health costs of agriculture nitrogen emissions US $10-34 billion [20] The methods used in previous studies were selected according to their relative importance and the urgency of the impact as well as the available data. The accounting techniques usually combine the subjective methods with objective ones such as shadow price, the willingness-to-pay method, and an impact removal method.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some studies have been conducted to estimate the environmental and health costs of agricultural production, including the impacts on soil acidification, climate change, eutrophication, biodiversity, and human health [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] (Table 1). However, the economic costs of the health damage caused by fertilizer utilization in China are still not very clear.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Spatio-Temporal Variations of Health Costs Caused by Chemical Fertilizer Utilization in China from 1990 to 2012

Yang

Shen

et al. 2017

Sustainability

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Abstract:The health impacts caused by chemical fertilizer utilization have challenged long-term sustainable development in many countries, particularly developing countries. Based on the emergy analysis method, we estimated the temporal and spatial variations of the health costs, through atmospheric, water, and soil pathways, of chemical fertilizer utilization in China during the period from 1990 to 2012. The results showed an obvious increasing trend of health costs from 1.8 billion Yuan in 1990 to 23.0 billion Yuan in 2012, while the ratio of health costs to agriculture output value declined slowly and became stable in recent years. Regional differences were remarkable and were significantly correlated to the levels of economic development (r = 0.843 and p < 0.001) and crop-sown area in the region (r = 0.588 and p < 0.001). Economically developed regions, especially the eastern coastal provinces, had much higher costs than the western regions. Meanwhile, fertilizer consumption shifted from the eastern to the northwest region, which was the same as the health costs. This study provides a reference to estimate the health costs of fertilizer utilization, and the results highlight the importance of sustainable development in China.

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Agricultural support and contaminated spillovers: The effects of agricultural water pollution on adult health in China

Villa

2021

Applied Eco Perspectives Pol

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Using rich longitudinal data combined with administrative water quality data from China, we examine the causal impact of agricultural water pollution on adult health outcomes. To obtain exogenous variation in agricultural water pollution, we use a quasi‐experimental design and exploit a series of agricultural support policies enacted in China in the mid‐2000s. We find that agricultural water pollution worsens health outcomes through increased incidence of morbidity and lower body mass index. We additionally find these adverse health effects largely operate through contaminated drinking water and are thus primarily born by those without access to water treated at a water plant.

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Environmental costs of China’s food security

Cited by 188 publications

References 63 publications

The Design of Policy Instruments towards Sustainable Livestock Production in China: An Application of the Choice Experiment Method

The Design of Policy Instruments towards Sustainable Livestock Production in China: An Application of the Choice Experiment Method

Spatio-Temporal Variations of Health Costs Caused by Chemical Fertilizer Utilization in China from 1990 to 2012

Agricultural support and contaminated spillovers: The effects of agricultural water pollution on adult health in China

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