Land Use, Livestock, Quantity Governance, and Economic Instruments—Sustainability Beyond Big Livestock Herds and Fossil Fuels

Antonia Weishaupt, Felix Ekardt, Beatrice Garske, Jessica Stubenrauch and Jutta Wieding
Additional contact information
Antonia Weishaupt: Research Unit Sustainability and Climate Policy, 04229 Leipzig, Germany
Felix Ekardt: Research Unit Sustainability and Climate Policy, 04229 Leipzig, Germany
Beatrice Garske: Research Unit Sustainability and Climate Policy, 04229 Leipzig, Germany
Jessica Stubenrauch: Research Unit Sustainability and Climate Policy, 04229 Leipzig, Germany
Jutta Wieding: Research Unit Sustainability and Climate Policy, 04229 Leipzig, Germany

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 5, 1-27

Abstract: The production of animal food products is (besides fossil fuels) one of the most important noxae with regard to many of the environmental problems, such as climate change, biodiversity loss or globally disrupted nutrient cycles. This paper provides a qualitative governance analysis of which regulatory options there are to align livestock farming with the legally binding environmental objectives, in particular the Paris Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Two innovative governance approaches are developed and compared: a cap-and-trade scheme for animal products and a livestock-to-land ratio. Both instruments are measured against the above-mentioned environmental objectives, taking into account findings from behavioural sciences and typical governance problems. Both approaches are generally suitable as quantity governance in animal husbandry if they are properly designed. In the end, a combination of both approaches proved to be particularly effective ecologically. All of this simultaneously demonstrates, on the basis of a rarely considered but ecologically highly relevant sector, how a quantity governance approach that is based on an easily comprehensible governance unit can function across all sectors and regions.

Keywords: livestock governance; economic policy instruments; emissions trading; livestock-to-land ratio; animal husbandry; food policy; climate policy; climate change; biodiversity loss (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/5/2053/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/5/2053/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:5:p:2053-:d:329556

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().