Greenhouse gas emissions have been a growing concern throughout the world, particularly in the Western society. Agriculture has been identified as both a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and a potential solution in mitigating emissions through carbon sequestration. Changing agriculture current production practices (called conventional production system) to an organic production system can reduce the need for synthetically produced agricultural inputs, and thereby reduce these emissions. However, this may generate other co-benefits (or costs) to the society. The focus of this study was to evaluate the implications of converting conventional agriculture production system to an organic one for greenhouse gas emissions, level of agricultural production, farmer net income, regional and national level changes (in terms of gross domestic product, household income, and employment levels). The scope of the study was limited to the Prairie Provinces in Canada. This area was selected because it contained a majority of area under organic production system in Canada. Since there are several types of changes resulting from the conversion, a trade-off analysis was used to evaluate the overall desirability of the two options - conventional production system and the organic production system.<p>
Multiple models were used to estimate various criteria. These included: the Canadian Regional Agriculture Model (CRAM), the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Model (GHGEM), and the Canadian Agriculture Regional Development Input-Output Model (CARDIOM).<p>
The study concluded that converting land under conventional production system to an organic production system reduces greenhouse gas emissions and improves regional gross domestic product, household income, and employment. However, it results in a reduction in quantity of agricultural production, national gross domestic product, national household income, and national employment.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:SSU.etd-05032010-151437 |
| Date | 24 June 2010 |
| Creators | Klemmer, Craig Ivan |
| Contributors | Ken Belcher, Bill Brown, Marie Boehm, Suren Kulshreshtha |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-05032010-151437/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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