ENVIRONMENTAL ACCOUNTING IN AGRICULTURE: A THEORETICAL OVERVIEW WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO TUSCANY

This paper addresses its specifics of environmental accounting for agriculture. Particularly it focuses on (a) data collecting/presenting or the environmental accounting methodology in agriculture, and. (b) indicators to measure the environmental consequences of agricultural production. The paper takes farming systems in the Tuscany Region in Italy and its specific environmental policy and management issues as a back drop. A new Environmental Accounting Information System (EAIS) is exposed that comprises both a set of environmental indicators for the evaluation of the farm externalities and the estimate of the farm environmental capital, a data collection system (the Environmental Accounting Questionnaire) and a set of elaboration methodologies for the indicators calculation. Examples about how to collect data and indicators elaboration methodology application are presented with special concern to ecological-environmental models and yardsticks (GLEAMS, EPRIP), biodiversity indicators and landscape evaluation.