Cameron-Harp Micah V, Hendricks Nathan P, Potter Nicholas A
Department of Agricultural Economics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, USA.
USDA Economic Research Service, Kansas City, Missouri, USA.
Carbon Balance Manag. 2024 Feb 9;19(1):6. doi: 10.1186/s13021-024-00252-6.
Two major factors that determine the efficiency of programs designed to mitigate greenhouse gases by encouraging voluntary changes in U.S. agricultural land management are the effect of land use changes on producers' profitability and the net sequestration those changes create. In this work, we investigate how the interaction of these factors produces spatial heterogeneity in the cost-efficiency of voluntary programs incentivizing tillage reduction and cover-cropping practices. We map county-level predicted rates of adoption for each practice with the greenhouse gas mitigation or carbon sequestration benefits expected from their use. Then, we use these bivariate maps to describe how the cost efficiency of agricultural mitigation efforts is likely to vary spatially in the United States.
Our results suggest the combination of high adoption rates and large reductions in net emissions make reduced tillage programs most cost efficient in the Chesapeake Bay watershed or the Upper Mississippi and Lower Missouri sub-basins of the Mississippi River. For programs aiming to reduce net emissions by incentivizing cover-cropping, we expect cost-efficiency to be greatest in the areas near the main stem of the Mississippi River within its Middle and Lower sections.
Many voluntary agricultural conservation programs offer the same incentives across the United States. Yet spatial variation in profitability and efficacy of conservation practices suggest that these uniform approaches are not cost-effective. Spatial targeting of voluntary agricultural conservation programs has the potential to increase the cost-efficiency of these programs due to regional heterogeneity in the profitability and greenhouse gas mitigation benefits of agricultural land management practices across the continental United States. We illustrate how predicted rates of adoption and greenhouse gas sequestration might be used to target regions where efforts to incentivize cover-cropping and reductions in tillage are most likely to be cost -effective.
在美国，通过鼓励农业土地管理的自愿性改变来减缓温室气体排放的项目效率，主要由两个因素决定：土地利用变化对生产者盈利能力的影响，以及这些变化所带来的净碳固存。在本研究中，我们探讨了这些因素的相互作用如何在激励减少耕作和种植覆盖作物的自愿性项目的成本效率方面产生空间异质性。我们绘制了每个实践的县级预测采用率，并结合其使用预期的温室气体减排或碳固存效益。然后，我们利用这些双变量地图来描述美国农业减排努力的成本效率在空间上可能如何变化。
我们的结果表明，高采用率和大幅减少净排放量的结合，使得减少耕作项目在切萨皮克湾流域或密西西比河上游和密苏里河下游子流域最具成本效益。对于旨在通过激励种植覆盖作物来减少净排放量的项目，我们预计成本效率在密西西比河中下游主干附近地区最高。
许多自愿性农业保护项目在美国各地提供相同的激励措施。然而，保护措施的盈利能力和效果的空间差异表明，这些统一的方法并不具有成本效益。由于美国大陆农业土地管理实践的盈利能力和温室气体减排效益存在区域异质性，自愿性农业保护项目的空间定位有可能提高这些项目的成本效率。我们说明了如何利用预测的采用率和温室气体固存来确定哪些地区最有可能在激励种植覆盖作物和减少耕作方面具有成本效益。
