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Evaluating Benefits of Eco-Agriculture: The Cases of Farms along Taiwan’s East Coast in Yilan and Hualien

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  • Kai-Lih Chen

    (Department of Applied Economics and Management, College of Humanities and Management, National I-Lan University, I-Lan 260, Taiwan)

  • Wei-Hsin Kong

    (Department of Applied Economics and Management, College of Humanities and Management, National I-Lan University, I-Lan 260, Taiwan)

  • Chi-Cheng Chen

    (Hualien District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, Hualien 973, Taiwan)

  • Je-Liang Liou

    (The Center for Green Economy, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, Taipei 106, Taiwan)

Abstract

The ecological agriculture (hereinafter referred to as eco-agriculture) concept has grown rapidly in Taiwan in recent years. More and more successful eco-agriculture projects have thus sprouted up in Taiwan, and so a quantitative evaluation model of such projects becomes critically important for improving public understanding of eco-agriculture and for providing a basis for policy analysis. This research thus proposes a quantitative evaluation model for eco-agriculture and analyzes the empirical data collected. We take four farms that practice eco-agriculture in eastern Taiwan for the estimation of direct benefits by surveying farmers about their revenues and costs of crop yields. To evaluate indirect benefits, we employ the Contingent Value Method (CVM) to investigate the willingness-to-pay (WTP) of users and non-users to support eco-agriculture. Results from the direct benefit estimation indicate that eco-agriculture adoption is unlikely to improve the local livelihoods of farming communities. In terms of indirect benefit estimation, eco-agriculture is beneficial to society, but based on our analysis of the direct benefits, these indirect benefits fail to be transformed into profits, showing that eco-agriculture exhibits positive externalities. This constitutes unavoidable challenges for eco-agriculture to be sustainable if these positive externalities cannot be internalized.

Suggested Citation

  • Kai-Lih Chen & Wei-Hsin Kong & Chi-Cheng Chen & Je-Liang Liou, 2021. "Evaluating Benefits of Eco-Agriculture: The Cases of Farms along Taiwan’s East Coast in Yilan and Hualien," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-23, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:19:p:10889-:d:647264
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