Abstract
Agriculture is an important source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and thus contributes considerably to global warming. However, farms can vary substantially in terms of their climatic impact. So far, most policies aiming at reducing GHG emissions from farming have largely been based on findings at the aggregate level, without taking farm heterogeneity properly into account. This study seeks to provide a better understanding of the GHG mitigation potential at the micro-level. We develop a comprehensible analytical framework for analyzing economic-ecological performance by way of stochastic frontier analysis. We introduce the concept of emission efficiency, where we distinguish between persistent and time-varying efficiency. We further analyze farms with respect to their emission-performance dynamics. Results from our (2005–2014) empirical application from Bavaria—an important region for the EU – show considerable differences in farm-level GHG emissions across different farm types. The same applies to emission efficiencies. Overall, emission performance improved over time. The results have important climate-policy implications as they help to provide better target measures for mitigating GHG emissions from agriculture, without compromising economic performance levels.
Highlights
Climate change—and its predicted consequences—has been a major topic of interest in research, in politics and the public sphere for several decades
N2O and CH4 quantities were multiplied by their respective global warming potentials (298 and 34, respectively) as per the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC 2013)
CO2 is present in all farming systems but plays a lesser role with respect to total emissions apart from crop farming
Summary
Climate change—and its predicted consequences—has been a major topic of interest in research, in politics and the public sphere for several decades. According to Beltrán-Esteve et al (2014), one reason for the limited scope of many works on ecoefficiency is the lack of appropriate environmental data at the micro-level In our empirical case study, we construct a unique panel dataset and demonstrate how to appropriately approximate GHG emissions at the micro-level, based on multiple data sources for farms in the German federal state of Bavaria. By relating eco-performance to greenhouse gas emissions, it is possible to detect the relative GHG mitigation potential of individual farms Such robust evidence is essential for managers and policy-makers that aiming at further optimizing their economicecological performance by reducing the release of atmospheric GHGs. The remainder of this article is organized as follows.
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