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Are more efficient farms also better for the environment?

The answer appears to be "yes" according to this paper in the journal Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy.

Their motivation:

“The productive efficiency literature has paid very little attention to environmental performance issues. Growing social and political concerns for the environmental impacts of agriculture make it necessary to study environmental and technical performance using robust methodologies that enable scientists to derive reliable indicators. ”

They found . . .

“Empirical findings suggest that our sample farms, on average, reach technical efficiency scores of 93%, and thus that they can reduce input use by 7% while leaving output levels unaltered. Environmental efficiency scores differ depending on the methodology used and indicate ample scope for improving environmental performance and reducing pesticide use and pollution.”

The punchline:

“environmentally efficient farms tend to be more allocative and technically efficient. Better agri-environmental performance is associated with good agricultural practices, supporting the notion that an efficient use of chemical inputs improves both environmental and technical performance. As opposed to previous studies that found an adverse effect of environmental regulations on productivity (Färe et al. 2001), the high correlation between TE and EE for our sample farms implies complementarity between economic and environmental sustainability.”

What advice would you give your younger self?

My 92 year old grandmother (Wanda Jordan) made the Lubbock, TX news yesterday as a part of a story on International Woman's Day, where ladies were asked what advice they'd give their younger self.

My grandmother recalls a tough upbringing on the farm with 12 siblings, and advises to "do the best you can with what you have."  From a lady that's often had very little, she's done exactly that.  Thanks Mama Jack!


Local Foods Advocates Fight Back

Pierre Desrochers (co-author of the excellent book The Locavore's Dilemma: In praise of the 10,000 mile diet) alerted me to this paper just published in the journal Agriculture and Human Values by Helen Scharber and Anita Dancs.  The authors asks, "Do locavores have a dilemma?"  The authors take issue with the sorts of arguments made by folks like me, Pierre, and a host of economists and other writers.  They write:

“Local food critics have recently argued that locavores, unaware of economic laws and principles, are ironically promoting a future characterized by less food security and more environmental destruction. In this paper, we critically examine the ways in which mainstream economics discourse is employed in arguments to undermine the proclaimed benefits of local food. ”

The article provides an excellent literature review of the case against local foods (even if they did miss my article on the topic with Bailey Norwood in Library of Economics and Liberty).   But, ultimately, I find their case against the case for local foods unsatisfying.  

In the end, they seem to conclude that the typical economic critique ignores power dynamics, externalities, and choice.  In other words, "big food" is warped by capitalism that generates market power and externalities, and local food is a solution to these evils of capitalism.  

They argue that local foods are not an either/or and they should exist alongside other markets in a way that increases availability and choice.  I agree!  As I've said many times: I'm not against local foods, I'm against bad arguments for local foods.  And, I'm against government policies that subsidize local food activities.  Why?  Precisely for the reason opposite of that argued in this paper: I see no compelling evidence that local foods meaningfully internalize any of the important adverse externalities associated  with food production.  Moreover, I don't see the local food movement as one that is anti-capitalistic: precisely the opposite! Lots of competition, innovation, competition and entrepreneurship is at the heart of the movement. Sellers who don't offer high quality, affordable products won't be at the farmers market for long, and those that do will grow bigger. Finally, what is it about local foods that meaningfully changes the power dynamic that so worries these authors?  Let's be frank, the local food movement has largely gained steam because it is desired by relatively rich, largely white Americans.  As Charles Mann put it in a New York Times interview:       

“if your concern is to produce the maximum amount of food possible for the lowest cost, which is a serious concern around the world for people who aren’t middle-class foodies like me, [local food] seems like a crazy luxury. It doesn’t make sense for my aesthetic preference to be elevated to a moral imperative”

I'll wrap up by pointing to this new paper I just came across published in the journal Appetite. The authors, "conducted a detailed cross-sectional assessment of all [farmers markets] in Bronx County, NY, and of the nearest store(s) selling produce within a half-mile walking distance (up to two stores per [farmers markets]). The study included 26 [farmers markets] and 44 stores." Here are the author's highlights and findings:

“•Farmers’ markets (FMs) may offer a means to get fresh produce into needy communities.
•But FMs operate overwhelming fewer months, days, and hours than nearby stores.
•FMs carry less-varied, less-common, more-expensive produce than nearby stores.
•FMs offer many items not optimal for good health (e.g., jams, pies, juice drinks).
•FMs might provide little net benefit to food environments in urban communities.”

XPrize in Food Security

The world faces important food challenges.  How do we incentivize researchers and innovators to address these challenges?  One option is through prizes.  Set a desired target outcome, and the first person (or team) to achieve the outcome wins a sizable monetary prize.  

Xprize is an organization seeking to apply this model to a variety of applications.  They are now floating the idea of a prize related to food security .  Here's the motivation 

“With the growth of the world’s population, and the negative effects of climate change, the demand for food will become increasingly greater, putting our food security at risk. With nearly 70 percent of the population living in urban areas by the year 2050, the distance between food sources and consumers will lengthen, further jeopardizing our food security. ”

While I agree with the first sentence, I'm not sure the 2nd one makes must sense.  We've been urbanizing for a century in the US, and food security in this country (at least for most people) has generally improved.  Nonetheless, research on these issues is worthwhile.  The good news is that there are many researchers working on precisely these issues.   Here's the sketch of possible prizes:

“Multiple prize concepts can be developed to help ensure food security. Depending on the prize designed, the winning team will a) produce the highest edible calorific output grown on a given piece of arid desert land using less than a TBD amount of water, fertilizer, and other inputs; b) create a “farm in a box” that provides enough caloric yield daily for a family of four using less than TBD water and other inputs, costs less than a TBD amount per year, and has a footprint of less than one square meter; or c) create a system that produces and delivers 10 crucial, predetermined micronutrients for human health in a sustainable manner at a cost less than TBD.”