Bio-Economics of Conservation Agriculture and Soil Carbon Sequestration in Developing Countries

by Wisdom Akpalu and Ekbom Anders

- Improvement in soil carbon through conservation agriculture in developing countries may generate some private benefits to farmers as well as sequester carbon emissions, which is a positive externality to society. Leaving crop residue on the farm has become an important option in conservation agriculture practice. However, in developing countries, using crop residue for conservation agriculture has the opportunity cost of say feed for livestock. In this paper, we model and develop an expression for an optimum economic incentive that is necessary to internalize the positive externality.

Akpalu, W. and E. Anders (2010). "Bio-Economics of Conservation Agriculture and Soil Carbon Sequestration in Developing Countries." University of Gothenburg School of Business, Economics and Law, Working Papers in Economics No 431, Feb 2010.