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Increasing food production and mitigating agricultural greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union: impacts of carbon pricing and calorie production targeting

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Abstract

This study focuses on the links between food production and greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union. The analysis relies on two sets of simulations of AROPAj, a supply-side model of EU agriculture: (i) a carbon price affecting agricultural GHG emissions (from 0 to 200 EUR/tCO2eq), and (ii) a lower limit on the net quantity of food calories provided by EU agriculture (200 to 450 Mt soft wheat equivalent). The model is calibrated on six annual datasets 2007–2012. The results show that a moderate increase in the price of carbon would lead to an increase in total areas and outputs of crops. Animal production decreases over the explored range of carbon price. At 200 EUR/tCO2eq, the reduction in GHG emissions ranges from 25 to 35% depending on the year of calibration. The results also show that current net calorie production from food can be more than doubled, while simultaneously reducing GHG emissions by 10–15%. The compatibility between a reduction in GHG emissions and an increase in food calorie production relies on substantial changes in animal production and feed, which implies significant variations in grassland and fallow land. These effects are contrasted between the regions of the EU.

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Notes

  1. There are two main ways to introduce carbon pricing: carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems. Both of these carbon pricing instruments have been presented as an important factor in incentivizing the mitigation of GHG emissions and promoting investment in low emission technologies and practices (OECD and WBG 2015; Kossoy et al. 2015; The Grantham Research Institute 2011).

  2. World Bank data https://data.worldbank.org.

  3. An entire technical presentation of the model is available at https://www6.versailles-grignon.inra.fr/economie_publique/Media/fichiers/ArticlAROPAj.

  4. For a detailed description of FADN data, see: http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/rica/

  5. Four key variables are used: FADN-defined type of farming (12 TF), altitude (3 levels), irrigation (share of area) and economic size (10 classes).

  6. For each of the years, the model is delineated through more than 1,700 and up to more than 1,900 representative farms.

  7. In AROPAj, the cereal area includes the main cereal crops: durum wheat, soft wheat, barley, maize, oats, rye, and other cereals.

  8. https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques.

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Acknowledgements

This work benefited from the French state aid managed by the French National Research Agency (ANR) under the “Investissements d’avenir” programme with the reference ANR-16-CONV-0003. It was supported by a grant overseen by the ANR as part of the Programme (LabEx BASC; ANR-11-LABX-0034) and by DIM ASTREA, a regional funding programme funded by Île-de-France authorities “Conseil régional d’Île-de-France”

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  1. Economie publique, INRAE, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, 78850, Thiverval-Grignon, France

    Ancuta Isbasoiu, Pierre-Alain Jayet & Stéphane De Cara

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  1. Ancuta Isbasoiu
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Correspondence to Pierre-Alain Jayet.

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Isbasoiu, A., Jayet, PA. & De Cara, S. Increasing food production and mitigating agricultural greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union: impacts of carbon pricing and calorie production targeting. Environ Econ Policy Stud 23, 409–440 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10018-020-00293-4

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