The economics of erosion and sustainable practices: The case of the saint-esprit watershed

Abstract

This paper examines the economics of the adoption of sustainable production practices for soil erosion control. The research was conducted on three case farms within the Saint-Esprit watershed in Quebec using a two-stage process. The first stage involved the use of GIS (Geographical Information Systems) to record erosion characteristics (slope, etc.) for these farmers' fields. This erosion information was then included as input information in the second stage of the process. Mixed integer linear programming (MILP) was used to model both individual farms and the watershed. Increasing erosion constraints were applied to these models to investigate changes in crop production mixes for farms and the watershed. A comparison of the results (farms versus watershed) was used to investigate policy questions concerning an optimal erosion constraint for society. Results generated indicate that farms with higher net incomes would be advantaged by erosion constraints set at the watershed level, whereas farms with lower net revenues would be disadvantaged. Thus, trading of pollution permits could be encouraged.