Graduation Year

2023

Date of Submission

12-2022

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Economics

Reader 1

Professor Laura Grant

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© 2022 Elizabeth C. Mitchell

Abstract

In the study of climate change and food systems, methane pollution research has been focused on livestock while ignoring the use of chemical fertilizer within crop production. There is an emerging group of studies that focus on the quantitative impact of farming on GHG emissions (Mardones and Lipski, 2020; González-Recio et al., 2020; Meyer-Aurich et al., 2020). To target the methane crisis, I develop methods to analyze the market parameters that drive the relationship between farming and air pollution specifically. My objective is to add to the literature by examining the impact of crop production on a single pollutant. This thesis also provides a framework through which the elasticity of demand for fertilizer can be determined, to contextualize the possibility of fiscal policies measures within the market for fertilizer. My results show that positive changes in price for fertilizer have a corresponding positive change on ambient fine particulate matter. This paper confirms that acreage of farmland and fertilizer usage impacts air pollution, however there is no significant impact of the type of commodity planted.

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