Assessing air pollution emissions vs. abatement costs in agricultural practices

Agriculture is a vital component of human civilization, providing food, fiber, and fuel for billions of people worldwide. However, the agricultural sector has also been identified as a significant contributor to air pollution. This study investigates and analyses the impact of agrofarming activities on air pollution in very productive areas such as Northern Italy. It explores the various sources and mechanisms through which agriculture affects air quality compared to all the other emission sectors and the types of pollutants involved, and quantifies the consequences for human health of agricultural emissions. As a further and novel step, it highlights the technologies that can mitigate these negative impacts and promote sustainable agriculture by adopting an integrated assessment modeling approach. This study defines policy recommendations for the area at hand, determining the optimal compromises between air quality improvement and pollution abatement costs. For instance, it shows that it is possible to reduce the average PM2.5 concentration by 17% with an annual expenditure of 300 M€. Four percent of this improvement is due to end-of-pipe abatement measures in the agricultural sector. Such an improvement in air quality would translate into a reduction of tens of thousands of years of life lost by the resident population. This study concludes with an outlook of additional options for addressing the air pollution challenges associated with agro-farming activities that constitute a limit of the current study, but could open new research lines.