ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMIC-POLICY ASSESSMENT - A FARM ECONOMIC-APPROACH

Increasing environmental problems in agriculture urge policy-makers to develop instruments to reduce and control the pollution caused by current intensive farming practices. These measures should be both effective from the ecological point of view, which is a public goal, as well as acceptable at the farm level with regard to private goals such as income and continuity of the farm. Therefore, information is required concerning the complex interaction of production intensity, environmental aspects and farm income. This paper concerns extension of the linear programming optimization models employed in farm economics with an environmental component to analyze and evaluate the effects of alternative environmental policy instruments for agriculture. The application presented concerns the potential role of technical innovations and of input levies to reduce biocide use in crop production.