Economics of Agricultural Impacts, Adapation, and Mitigation.

Economics of Agricultural Impacts, Adaptation, and Mitigation

Economic considerations are important in the agricultural sector as domestic and international markets interact to affect commodity and food prices and hence the profitability and viability of different adaptation and mitigation strategies.  Much has been learned over the course of nearly 30 years of research on the economics of climate change.  This paper reviews the key lessons learned from this past research, and identifies key topics that are currently being addressed.  Key state of art topics includes addressing uncertainty and evaluating the impact of extreme events and abrupt climate change, the interaction of mitigation and adaptation, evaluating the effects of multiple environmental stresses including CO₂, climate, soils, ozone, nitrogen deposition, and changes in solar radiance from aerosol pollution, and evaluating indirect emissions from activities such as biofuel production that lead to changes in land use and agricultural practices with consequences for CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O emissions.