Development of agricultural nitrogen emission until 2020 Agriculture is the main emitter of three reactive nitrogen (N) compounds: ammonia, nitrate and nitrous oxide. Therefore, the agricultural sector is especially in charge for contributing to the mitigation of environmentally harmful N emissions. This is even accentuated by the fact that considerable gaps can be observed between the long term goals stated by law and the current situation. In this article, we investigate which interim emission targets could be aimed for in the year 2020. To this end, we implemented selected mitigation practices into an already existing agricultural allocation model. We applied the model in order to assess the mitigation potential of an agricultural nitrogen reduction and the corresponding sector related abatement cost. Model runs show that only a 10% reduction of ammonia, nitrate and the further N compounds can be expected until 2020, given the selected measures within the Resources program of the current agricultural policy regime. Without any additional mitigation measures, further emission reductions seem only to be attainable via an extensification or via a decline in agricultural production. But this would go along with undesired implications on sectoral income. The interim emission targets to be set for 2020 are therefore highly depending on the realizable potential of mitigation practices that have not been taken into account so far. However, the achievement of the stated long-term goals will remain a challenge for research, policy and praxis.

Environmental impacts of agricultural production, such as greenhouse gas (GHG) and nitrogen emissions, are of major concern for scientists and policy makers throughout the world. Global agricultural activities account for about 60% of nitrous oxide and about 50% of methane emissions. From a global perspective, methane and nitrous oxide constitute crucial GHGs. They contribute substantially to climate change due to their high potential for effecting global warming compared to carbon dioxide. Emissions of these gases depend on the extent of agricultural production and applied technologies. Therefore, analysis of potential mitigation opportunities is challenging and requires an integrated approach in order to link agricultural economic perspectives to environmental aspects. In view of this, a mathematical programming model has been developed which enables assessment of cost-effective strategies for mitigating GHG and nitrogen emissions in the agricultural sector in Switzerland. This model is applied to improve understanding of the agricultural sector and its behavior with changing conditions in technology and policy. The presented recursive-dynamic model mimics the structure and interdependencies of Swiss agriculture and links that framework to core sources of GHG and nitrogen emissions. Calculated results for evaluation and application indicate that employed flexibility constraints provide a feasible approach to sufficiently validate the described model. Recursive-dynamic elements additionally enable adequate modeling of both an endogenous development of livestock dynamics and investments in buildings and machinery, also taking sunk costs into account. The presented findings reveal that the specified model approach is suitable to accurately estimate agricultural structure, GHG and nitrogen emissions within a tolerable range. The model performance can therefore be described as sufficiently robust and satisfactory. Thus, the model described here appropriately models strategies for GHG and nitrogen abatement in Swiss agriculture. The results indicate that there are limits to the ability of Swiss agriculture to contribute substantially to the mitigation of GHG and nitrogen emissions. There is only a limited level of mitigation available through technical approaches, and these approaches have high cost.

A recent study at the ETH Zurich shows that the development of agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Switzerland will, also in the near future, mainly depend oil the development of livestock populations. Current GHG reduction measures may only play a marginal role, given their relatively high cost. Furthermore, the results indicate that the target of reducing agricultural GHGs by 20% below the 1990 level could be achieved with a GHG charge of 50 CHF/t CO(2)eq only if at the same time the agricultural price level would be lowered. Yet, this would entail substantial income losses for the farmers.

Model-based calculations by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) have shown that the production of bio-energy on agricultural land on any kind of serious scale would only be of interest if energy prices rise considerably. Moreover, it would also be contingent upon bio-energy being generally exempted from taxes on mineral oils as well as being protected against the import of cheap bio-energy from abroad. The contribution towards domestic energy sources would, however, still be marginal, representing less than 8% of the consumption of fossil fuels.

This paper addresses the issue of how to model the competition for farmland between crop- based food and energy production in a context of rising fuel prices by applying a normative economic modeling approach for the Swiss agricultural sector. Our model results show that eighter exceedingly high domestic fuel prices or financial support of a crop-based biofuel production could cause a strong trade-off with constitutional food-supply security - even though the corresponding contribution to energy supply security remains marginal, covering less than 8% of the current fossil-fuel consumption. In this respect, we conclude that public financial support of a crop-based biofuel production is hardly to be justifiable in Switzerland.