Agricultural Waste Recycling Optimization of Family Farms Based on Environmental Management Accounting in Rural China

Lulu Yang, Xu Xiao and Ke Gu
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Lulu Yang: Business School, Central South University, Changsha 410012, China
Xu Xiao: Business School, Central South University, Changsha 410012, China
Ke Gu: School of Computer and Communication Engineering, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha 410114, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-16

Abstract: In the process of production and operation of family farms, a large amount of agricultural waste, such as livestock and poultry manure, has not been effectively treated in time, causing serious pollution to the environment. Moreover, livestock and poultry manure are the kind of resources that can be recycled to fertilize crops, which can benefit family farms both economically and environmentally. Adoption of manure biogas digesters by family farms can improve sustainability by not only decreasing input use and resource losses, but also reducing environmental pollution. Additionally, Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA) is considered to be the most representative environmental management accounting tool. MFCA can be expanded to account for and calculate environmental damages, so as to better reflect the economic and environmental sustainability of agricultural systems. According to the basic principles of material flow cost accounting and characteristics of family farms, we propose an agricultural-waste-recycling model for Chinese family farms that is based on the extended MFCA in this paper. We first investigate Chinese family farms in Hunan Province, and then optimize an agricultural-waste-recycling model by extended MFCA. Finally, based on our proposed model, we make a two-dimensional analysis on the internal resource cost and external environment damages for agricultural-waste recycling. Our analysis shows that visualization of monetization of resource losses can optimize manure recycling through better decision-making, which can increase the sustainability of family farms.

Keywords: agricultural-waste recycling; Material Flow Cost Accounting; family farm; sustainable development (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 (4)

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