IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jageco/v47y1996i1-4p50-65.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Natural And Reproducible Capital And The Sustainability Of Land Use In The Uk

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Whitby
  • W. Neil Adger

Abstract

The article reviews the relevant concepts in assessing sustainability at the sector level for British agriculture and forestry. It notes that the use of reproducible capital is not sustainable in the sector as depreciation has exceeded gross fixed capital formation for some years, although that retrenchment may, however, be an appropriate response to expected lower farm prices and increased efficiency in the use of capital. It then exemplifies the problems of measuring the sustainability of use of natural capital by reference to specific problems, namely the release of global pollutants from agriculture and forestry, the economic cost of soil erosion and the economic cost associated with damage to Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). On the basis of a wider review of the context of these changes, it is concluded that the sustainability of primary land use, as currently practised, must await substantial research before positive claims can be made for its overall sustainability.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Whitby & W. Neil Adger, 1996. "Natural And Reproducible Capital And The Sustainability Of Land Use In The Uk," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(1‐4), pages 50-65, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:jageco:v:47:y:1996:i:1-4:p:50-65
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1477-9552.1996.tb00671.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-9552.1996.tb00671.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1477-9552.1996.tb00671.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    2. Thomas P. Holmes, 1988. "The Offsite Impact of Soil Erosion on the Water Treatment Industry," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 64(4), pages 356-366.
    3. Deaton, A. S., 1975. "The measurement of income and price elasticities," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 261-273, July.
    4. Nordhaus, William D., 1993. "Rolling the 'DICE': an optimal transition path for controlling greenhouse gases," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 27-50, March.
    5. Adger, W Neil & Whitby, Martin C, 1993. "Natural-Resource Accounting in the Land-Use Sector: Theory and Practice," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 20(1), pages 77-97.
    6. Common,Michael, 1995. "Sustainability and Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521436052, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Julie Whittaker, 1997. "Natural And Reproducible Capital And The Sustainability Of Land Use In The Uk: A Comment," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1‐3), pages 451-453, January.
    2. Rigby, D. & Caceres, D., 2001. "Organic farming and the sustainability of agricultural systems," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 21-40, April.
    3. Dobbs, Thomas L. & Pretty, Jules N., 2001. "The United Kingdom'S Experience With Agri-Environmental Stewardship Schemes: Lessons And Issues For The United States And Europe," Economics Staff Papers 32014, South Dakota State University, Department of Economics.
    4. D Rigby & S Brown, 2003. "Organic Food and Global Trade: Is the Market Delivering Agricultural Sustainability?," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0326, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    5. Izac, A. -M. N. & Sanchez, P. A., 2001. "Towards a natural resource management paradigm for international agriculture: the example of agroforestry research," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 69(1-2), pages 5-25.
    6. Buckwell, Allan, 2006. "Rural development in the EU," Economia Agraria y Recursos Naturales, Spanish Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 6(12), pages 1-28.
    7. Harris, Michael & Fraser, Iain, 2002. "Natural resource accounting in theory and practice: A critical assessment," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 46(2), pages 1-54.
    8. MacDonald, Daisy V. & Hanley, Nick & Moffatt, Ian, 1999. "Applying the concept of natural capital criticality to regional resource management," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 73-87, April.
    9. Martin C. Whitby & W. Neil Adger, 1997. "Natural And Reproducible Capital And The Sustainability Of Land Use In The Uk: A Reply," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1‐3), pages 454-458, January.
    10. Rigby, Dan & Caceres, Daniel, 1997. "The Sustainability of Agricultural Systems," Rural Resources\Rural Livelihoods Working Papers 30574, University of Manchester, Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nunes, P.A.L.D. & Nijkamp, P., 2011. "Biodiversity: Economic perspectives," Serie Research Memoranda 0002, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    2. Stern, David I., 1997. "Limits to substitution and irreversibility in production and consumption: A neoclassical interpretation of ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 197-215, June.
    3. Common, Michael, 1995. "Economists don't read Science," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 101-103, November.
    4. Bohringer, Christoph & Loschel, Andreas, 2006. "Computable general equilibrium models for sustainability impact assessment: Status quo and prospects," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 49-64, November.
    5. Emilio Padilla, 2002. "Limitations and biases of conventional analysis of climate change. Towards an analysis coherent with sustainable development," Working Papers wp0206, Department of Applied Economics at Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona.
    6. Clayton, Helena & Brennan, Donna C., 1999. "A review of economic issues for sustainable shrimp farming in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam," 1999 Conference (43th), January 20-22, 1999, Christchurch, New Zealand 123794, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    7. Richard Lamming & Adam Faruk & Paul Cousins, 1999. "Environmental soundness: a pragmatic alternative to expectations of sustainable development in business strategy," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(3), pages 177-188, May.
    8. Michael Pflüger & Jens Südekum, 2005. "Die Neue Ökonomische Geographie und Effizienzgründe für Regionalpolitik," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 74(1), pages 26-46.
    9. Stuart Harris, 1996. "Economics of the Environment: A Survey," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 72(217), pages 154-171, June.
    10. Hoberg, Nikolai & Baumgärtner, Stefan, 2017. "Irreversibility and uncertainty cause an intergenerational equity-efficiency trade-off," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 75-86.
    11. David I. Stern, 1997. "The Capital Theory Approach to Sustainability: A Critical Appraisal," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 145-174, March.
    12. Jaeger, William K., 1995. "Is sustainability optimal? Examining the differences between economists and environmentalists," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 43-57, October.
    13. Christoph Böhringer & Andreas Löschel, 2004. "Die Messung nachhaltiger Entwicklung mithilfe numerischer Gleichgewichtsmodelle," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 73(1), pages 31-52.
    14. Niki Frantzeskaki & Derk Loorbach & James Meadowcroft, 2012. "Governing societal transitions to sustainability," International Journal of Sustainable Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 15(1/2), pages 19-36.
    15. Dodds, Steve, 1997. "Towards a 'science of sustainability': Improving the way ecological economics understands human well-being," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 95-111, November.
    16. Johan Eyckmans & Michael Finus, 2006. "New roads to international environmental agreements: the case of global warming," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 7(4), pages 391-414, December.
    17. Mechthild Donner & Anne Verniquet & Jan Broeze & Katrin Kayser & Hugo de Vries, 2021. "Critical success and risk factors for circular business models valorising agricultural waste and by-products," Post-Print hal-03004851, HAL.
    18. Cornelis Leeuwen & Jos Frijns & Annemarie Wezel & Frans Ven, 2012. "City Blueprints: 24 Indicators to Assess the Sustainability of the Urban Water Cycle," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(8), pages 2177-2197, June.
    19. Senni, Chiara Colesanti & von Jagow, Adrian, 2023. "Water risks for hydroelectricity generation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119256, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. CHEN, Helen S.Y., 2020. "Designing Sustainable Humanitarian Supply Chains," OSF Preprints m82ar, Center for Open Science.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jageco:v:47:y:1996:i:1-4:p:50-65. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0021-857X .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.