Department of Biosciences and Agricultural and Environmental Technologies, University of Teramo, Teramo, Italy.
Department of Agriculture and Forest Sciences, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy.
J Environ Manage. 2024 Feb;351:119880. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.119880. Epub 2023 Dec 29.
Methane (CH) emissions from cattle farms have been prioritised on the EU agenda, as shown by recent legislative initiatives. This study employs a supply-side agroeconomic model that mimics the behaviour of heterogeneous individual farms to simulate the application of alternative economic policy instruments to curb CH emissions from Italian cattle farms, as identified by the 2020 Farm Accountancy Data Network survey. Simulations consider increasing levels of a tax on each tonne of CH emitted or of a subsidy paid for each tonne of CH curbed with respect to the baseline. Individual marginal abatement costs are also derived. Besides, to consider possible technological options to curb emissions, a mitigation strategy is simulated, with different levels of costs and benefits to appraise the potential impacts on the sector. Relevant reductions in operating income are foreseen, the most substantial in farm types and size classes characterised by lower levels of carbon productivity. The introduction of the mitigation strategy shows that the outcome in terms of mitigation potential, without undermining production level, highly depends on the implementation costs, but can also vary widely due to heterogeneous farms' economic performances. Policy implications are also derived.
欧盟议程将奶牛场的甲烷（CH）排放作为优先事项，最近的立法举措也证明了这一点。本研究采用了一种供给侧农经模型，该模型模拟了异质个体农场的行为，以模拟应用替代经济政策工具来遏制意大利奶牛场的 CH 排放，这是根据 2020 年农场会计数据网络调查确定的。模拟考虑了相对于基线，每吨 CH 排放征收的税款或每吨 CH 减排支付的补贴增加的不同水平。还推导出了个体边际减排成本。此外，为了考虑可能的减排技术选择，模拟了一种缓解策略，评估了对该部门的潜在影响，不同的成本和收益水平。预计运营收入会有相关减少，在碳生产力水平较低的农场类型和规模类别中，减少幅度最大。缓解策略的引入表明，在不降低生产水平的情况下，就缓解潜力而言，结果在很大程度上取决于实施成本，但由于农场的经济绩效存在差异，结果也可能有很大差异。还得出了政策影响。
