Cost-Effectiveness of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Measures for Agriculture: A Literature Review

Michael MacLeod, Vera Eory, Guillaume Gruère and Jussi Lankoski
Additional contact information
Michael MacLeod: Scotland’s Rural College
Vera Eory: Scotland’s Rural College

No 89, OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: This paper reviews the international literature on the cost-effectiveness of supply-side mitigation measures that can reduce the emissions intensity of agriculture while maintaining or increasing production. Sixty-five recent international studies of cost-effectiveness covering 181 individual activities are reviewed. Nine case studies of well covered mitigation measures, generally using a cost-engineering approach, illustrate significant differences in the cost-effectiveness of measures across countries and studies, in part due to contextual differences. Although caution needs to be exercised in comparing heterogeneous studies, the results suggest that measures based on fertiliser use efficiency, cattle breeding, and potentially improving energy efficiency in mobile machinery, are often considered highly cost-effective mitigation measures across countries. A preliminary overview of policy highlights the existence of a range of options to encourage the adoption of cost-effective measures, from information to incentive-based policies. Further analysis is needed to address remaining estimation challenges and to help determine how mitigation measures may be embedded into broader climate, agricultural and environmental policy frameworks.

Keywords: agricultural; climate change; cost-effectiveness; greenhouse gas mitigation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q16 Q52 Q54 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-08-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-eff, nep-ene, nep-env and nep-reg
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1787/5jrvvkq900vj-en (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:oec:agraaa:89-en

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Papers from OECD Publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().