Instant Insights: Economics of Agriculture

This book features four peer-reviewed reviews on the economics of key elements of agriculture. The first chapter describes the economic potential for the widespread adoption of agricultural robotics worldwide, focussing primarily on adoption in low- and middle-income countries. The chapter also considers the broader implications of agricultural robotics adoption on the farm sector. The second chapter explores the large and diverse literature on the economics of nitrogen in agriculture and the economics of off-farm impacts from nitrogen fertilisation. The chapter also considers the over-application of nitrogen fertilisers and their contribution to nitrogen pollution. The third chapter summarises recent advances in the development of novel integrated weed management (IWM) strategies and the economic consequences of their use in farming systems. The chapter also reviews the economics of different IWM strategies and the contrasting approaches used to assess their efficiency. The final chapter discusses the use of groundwater for agricultural use and how unregulated overdevelopment of this key resource poses a threat to its sustainability. This chapter presents several approaches to groundwater governance and evaluates the appropriateness of each approach using socioeconomic theory.