Government subsidies designed to encourage cotton production in Benin have resulted in unsustainable agricultural production practices. Properly introduced, precision farming technology can help farmers improve their management practices and stop the damages being done to the environment. An...

This study compares and contrasts the profitability of different dairy management practices through precision livestock farming. Feed analysis and crop yields were simulated. The proposed alternative feeding program demonstrated less manure and nutrient excretions. When mathematical programming...

This study estimates the carbon footprint of a Henderson County, Kentucky grain farmer under different production strategies; traditional farming and precision agriculture technologies. Four constrained optimization, whole farm analysis models were formulated under no-till conditions. One of the...

The widespread use of pesticides in agriculture provides a particularly complex pattern of multidimensional negative side-effects, ranging from food safety related effects to the deterioration of farmland ecosystems. The assessment of the economic implications of such negative processes is...

Replaced with revised version of paper 11/18/08.

The aim of this paper is to carry out a comparative analysis of alternative methods on constructing composite indicators to measure global sustainability of the agricultural sector. This comparison is implemented empirically on the irrigated agriculture of the Duero basin (Spain) as a case...

Our optimal control model identifies economic reasons as to why farmland bird populations have dramatically declined in modern agricultural landscapes. By integrating recreational wildlife values into farm level decision-making on arable crop choice and herbicide use, we derive those economic...

Proposals of the European Commission stress the future importance of agri-environmental payments within the rural development policy of the European Union. The aim of this paper is to present and discuss a model for choice for plant species protection contracts in the Netherlands. The model...

Following the decoupling of the cotton subsidies in 2006 the production system has become less intensive in input usage with an average yield reduction of 40 per cent. Albeit the farm income has not been reduced, the reform has had a negative effect on the economy of some rural areas of Southern...