Algricultural Emternalities

Agricultural Emternalities| Brandt-Williams & Pillet

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FERTILIZER CO-PRODUCTS AS AGRICULTURAL EMTERNALITIES
Quantifying Environmental Services Used in Production of Food
by Sherry BRANDT-WILLIAMS * and Gonzague PILLET * *

[University of Florida |Biennial Emergy Analysis Conference| publ. 2003] Abstract
The environmental consequences of processes necessary for food production arerarely factored into crop evaluations. Byproducts created as part of an agricultural system inputs, prior to use of the main product, and without further concentration or recycle, require additional fundamental environmental services associated with eliminating their environmental impact, and fall within the food production process. Emer y was used in this g evaluation to determine a more realisticsustainability picture for the food we eat and to numerically value a new set of services by suggesting the incorporation of these byproducts into emergy ratios presently incorporating only inputs actually used in the process.This study also suggests the use of emternalities both as a terminology and methodology to evaluate sustainability by using emergy to value a new set of non-traditionalexternalities. Integrating co-product emergy in the Florida tomato evaluation increased total flows by 28%. Florida cabbage showed an 88% increase in total emer oranges increased by 75% gy, and watermelon increased by 55%. A comparison of renewable emternalities to non-renewable emternalities illustrated an emergy deficit of 6.3 E22 sej/yr to the state of Florida from gypsum co-products associated withtomato, cabbage, watermelon and orange yields in 1994. The emdollar value of services to the United States for treatment of diammonium phosphate fertilizer produced in 2000 was valued at 564 billion emdollars.

INTRODUCTION Agribusiness is an industry dependent on manufactured chemical inputs for high yields. For every additive beneficial to productivity, there are by-products requiring extensiveenvironmental services to render them inert. Radioactive gypsum stacks, residual pesticides and increasing nutrient loading to lakes and rivers are examples. The consequences of processes necessary for food production are rarely factored into crop evaluations except for field-scale studies looking at soil loss or nutrient leaching. This paper presents a method for incorporating a larger scaleperspective into agricultural commodities, and deals with the fate of co-products.
* Environmental **

Protection Agency (EPA), U.S.A. | slbw@cox.net Fribourg and Geneva Universities, Switzerland; Ecosys, Inc., Geneva | pillet@ecosys.com

Agricultural Emternalities| Brandt-Williams & Pillet

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Economic evaluations recognize the processing cost for these additives, but not the otherfundamental environmental services – neither in crop production nor in the additive manufacture. While these services are sometimes recognized as important externalities from the fertilizer process, difficulty in assessing loss or redirection of use of public commodities, such as estuaries, keeps them from being broadly internalized [internalized externality is a dollar amount that has been directly addedto the cost of the final product] (Pillet 2001; Pillet 1986; Koomey et al. 1997; Jordan 1995). Further, classic definitions of externalities typically deal with output products and not the environmental support required prior to production – the long-term concentration of phosphate rock or photosynthetic energy required for phosphate mining, for example (Pillet et al. 2000). Looking at the nextstep in food production – the field, classic externalities might cover the loss of soil as an unvalued output, but the environmental services prior to crop production are not typically considered externalities. Consequently, wastes produced just prior to use of the intended product would not be added into the cost of food production. Even if the wastes from fertilizer processing were internalized...