Study finds modern farming is costly.

• Author: Helweil, Brian
• Position: Impact on environment

* Study finds modern farming is costly: A new study by an international team of economists, ecologists, and agricultural scientists finds that the benefits farmers reap from employing modern agricultural techniques are eroded by the costs of pollution, landscape and wildlife destruction, soil erosion, and foodborne illnesses. "Because no one has to directly pay these costs," explains lead author Jules Pretty of the Centre for Environment and Society at the University of Essex, "there is no incentive to discontinue activities that are costly to society and the environment."

The study estimates that, in the United Kingdom, conventional agriculture costs society $3.8 billion each year, or $377 for each hectare of arable farmland. Among the most expensive items are $198 million spent on removing pesticides from drinking water; $135 million spent to repair damage to ditches, roads, rivers, and homes caused by soil erosion; $1.84 billion spent on air pollution (primarily methane and nitrous oxide emissions); $279 million spent treating bacterial and viral outbreaks in food; and $1 billion spent dealing with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) in British cattle and the related outbreak of Creutzveldt-Jakob Disease in humans. Summarized in this study are less comprehensive estimates for the agricultural sectors of other nations. These also show a heavy toil: $2 billion or $274 per hectare of arable land in Germany, and $34.7 billion or $112 per hectare of arable land in the United States.

Many of agriculture's "hidden costs" are difficult to quantify because they are often ignored or poorly documented, develop over a long time period, or have not been adequately researched. As a result, the analysis did not include the costs of a declining stock of agricultural biodiversity, antibiotic overuse in livestock production, or the harmful effects of pesticides on human health. Nor did it include the hidden costs of other aspects of the food system, such as the health costs of air pollution from shipping...