The Bioeconomics of Conservation Agriculture and Soil Carbon Sequestration in Developing Countries

Wisdom Akpalu and Ekbom Anders

RFF Working Paper Series from Resources for the Future

Abstract: Improving soil carbon through conservation agriculture in developing countries may generate some private benefits to farmers, as well as sequester carbon emissions, which is a positive externality to society. Leaving crop residue on the farm has become an important option in conservation agriculture practice. However, in developing countries, using crop residue for conservation agriculture has the opportunity cost of feed for livestock. In this paper, we model and develop an expression for an optimum economic incentive that is necessary to internalize the positive externality. A crude value of the tax is calculated using data from Kenya. We also empirically investigated the determinants of the crop residue left on the farm and found that it depends on the cation exchange capacity (CEC) of the soil, the prices of maize, whether extension officers visit the plot or not, household size, the level of education of the household head, and alternative cost of soil conservation.

Keywords: conservation agriculture; soil carbon; climate change; bioeconomics; Kenya (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C61 Q18 Q24 Q54 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-03-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-ene and nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Bio-economics of Conservation Agriculture and Soil Carbon Sequestration in Developing Countries (2010)
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