Feebates for dealing with trade-offs on fertilizer subsidies: A conceptual framework for environmental management

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.03.319

Journal of Cleaner Production

Volume 189, 10 July 2018, Pages 898-909

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.03.319 Get rights and content

Highlights

•
Subsidies increase use of fertilizers for any (semi-) economically acting farmer.
•
The ‘too-little too much dilemma’ of fertilization asks for proper economic means.
•
Feebates are a reasonable economic means to induce sustainable fertilization.
•
Feebates can be operationalized via a multi-scale $\times$ multisystem cost-benefit approach.
•
The borderline for fees vs. rebates includes systemic and normative issues.

Abstract

Approximately half of today's annual worldwide crop yields can be attributed to the application of mineral fertilizers. Globally, we rely and depend on additional yields as a cornerstone of present and future global food security. In areas with very low nutrient loads, subsidies for appropriate and responsible fertilizer use may help farmers to increase their yields and improve soil fertility. In many countries of the world, fertilizer subsidies are applied as direct payments; however, they have also become an environmental risk factor. We deliberate in what way(s) maximizing the farmer's economic yield conflicts with maximizing societal interests. We show (mathematically) that, from the perspective of a single farmer, under the assumption that crop yields increase monotonically with the application of fertilizers, any fertilizer subsidy provides an economic incentive to increase the application of fertilizer, independent of the amount that has already been applied. We suggest feebate systems (i.e., fee- and rebate-based mechanisms like penalty taxes and subsidies based on a specific reference point or borderline) as an economic strategy for regulating both over- and under-fertilization. This acknowledges the various roles that subsidies have played historically, ranging from agricultural systems that have generally over-fertilized, such as urban agriculture in China, Vietnam, or Indonesia, to countries where fertilizer subsidies are provided to compensate for significant land degradation. In order to connect feebates to fertilization based on a sustainable reference or borderline, we provide a conceptual, multilevel environmental and sustainability assessment that is linked to conventional and market-based economic means, such as farm-specific feebates or cap and trade.

Section snippets

Toward economic sustainability: mechanisms to improve fertilization

Agricultural land use is genuinely linked to multiple-resource use and depletion, such as finite, nonrenewable resources including input factors like potentially arable land (Tilman, 1999), (ground) water (Mitchell et al., 2015), or phosphate rock deposits (Wellmer and Scholz, 2017). Negative agricultural impacts should be properly balanced with benefits on different scales (Valdivia et al., 2012). Thus, we conceive of environmental management as the “management of human impact on the

Multilevel and conflicting rationales for farmers and society

Any model is a simplified and idealized representation of several aspects of reality, given certain assumptions. The subsequent model does not take into account external factors such as variations in weather and changing soil conditions (on a farm and over time). The model assumes that we may assess the farmer's multiple costs including fertilization and that there is a well-defined and monotonically non-decreasing function of the amount of yield depending on the amount of fertilizer used.

Conceptual, practical, and political perspectives

Globally, the nutrient challenge requires the attainment of a sustainable level of efficacy, i.e., to produce enough food to meet the requirements of humankind with low fertilizer input and low environmental impacts (e.g., Roberts and Johnston, 2015; Zhang et al., 2008). The proposed framework for fertilizer management broadens this and calls for an integrated multiscale and multisystem perspective. This appears to be a Herculean task from agro-economic, environmental, and general

Conclusion

Globally, the application of fertilizers is increasing significantly. The presented modeling was restricted to a homogeneous fertilizer that can be purchased on the market. Thus, organic fertilizers and their potential long-term negative impacts on soil fertility have not been considered here. Integrating these would call for a more-differentiated analysis (including the interactions of farm-specific mineral-fertilizer inputs and available organic fertilizers). Although we believe that most

Acknowledgements

We want to thank Luc Maene, Jörg Matschullat, and Gerald Steiner for their valuable feedback and Elaine Ambrose for the thoughtful language editing of this paper.

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View full text

Feebates for dealing with trade-offs on fertilizer subsidies: A conceptual framework for environmental management

Highlights

Abstract

Section snippets

Toward economic sustainability: mechanisms to improve fertilization

Multilevel and conflicting rationales for farmers and society

Conceptual, practical, and political perspectives

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Int. J. Prod. Econ.

Eur. J. Agron.

J. Clean. Prod.

J. Clean. Prod.

Environ. Sci. Pol.

Conserv. Recycl.

Environ. Model. Software

Eur. J. Agron.

J. Clean. Prod.

J. Clean. Prod.

Global Environ. Change

J. Clean. Prod.

Resour. Conserv. Recycl.

Ecosystems & Environment

Conserv. Recycl.

Resour. Conserv. Recycl.

Land Use Pol.

Ecol. Econ.

Agric. Syst.

Farmer's attitudes towards soil analysis in Ankara province of Turkey

Fresenius Environ. Bull.

Q&A: Reform of EU Farm Policy

Budget 2016: Govt Raises Agriculture Spending to Rs36,000 Crore

The application of cloud computing and the internet of things in agriculture and forestry

Internalizing the societal costs of agricultural production

Plant Physiol.

Environmental implications of crop insurance subsidies in Southern Italy

Int. J. Environ. Stud.

Nonpoint pollution of surface waters with phosphorus and nitrogen

Ecol. Appl.

Market Mechanisms: Understanding the Options

Soft systems methodology

8 Disruptive Digital Technologies... With the Power to Transform Agriculture

Peak phosphorus: clarifying the key issues of a vigorous debate about long-term phosphorus security

Sustainability

Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems

Land use impacts on biodiversity in LCA: a global approach

Int. J. Life Cycle Assess.

Input subsidies to improve smallholder maize productivity in Malawi: toward an African Green revolution

PLoS Biol.

Spreading dead zones and consequences for marine ecosystems

Science

Advanced engineering systems for specialty crops: a review of precision agriculture for water, chemical, and nutrient application, and yield monitoring

Statistical Factsheet. European Commission

Land clearing and the biofuel carbon debt

Science

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Phil. Trans. Biol. Sci.

Soil test levels in North America

Better Crops

Precision agriculture and food security

Science