Using FADN Data to Estimate CO 2 Abatement Costs from Italian Arable Crops

Guido Bazzani, Giuliano Vitali, Concetta Cardillo and Maurizio Canavari
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Giuliano Vitali: Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, Alma Mater Studiorum-Università di Bologna, UNIBO-DISTAL, 40127 Bologna, Italy
Concetta Cardillo: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Center for Agricultural Policies and Bioeconomy, CREA-PB, 00198 Roma, Italy

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-20

Abstract: The assessment of economic and environmental sustainability of agricultural systems represents a critical issue, which has been addressed in this work with a multi-objective programming model to explore the abatement costs (AC) of CO 2 for a set of representative contexts of Italian arable land agriculture. The study was based on the FADN-compliant Italian database RICA and estimates the abatement costs of CO 2 emissions in a short time horizon, using linear multi-objective programming and compromise programming. RICA data were used to quantify technical parameters of the model, adopting an innovative concept of a cropping scheme to simulate land-use adaptation. The study shows a quite diversified situation regarding income and emission levels per hectare across the Italian region and farm classes. A reduction of CO 2 emissions higher than 5 kg/ha at an AC lower than 1 EUR/kg is affordable only in seven regions, among which Abruzzo, Lombardy, and Puglia show the highest potential. Comparing the estimated abatement costs for CO 2 emissions with the corresponding European Trade System prices highlights a difference of 1 order of magnitude, proving that emission reductions for Italian arable crops still require research and innovation to lower adaptation costs.

Keywords: sustainability; agriculture; CO 2 emissions; FADN; multi-objective programming (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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