A Review of Quantifying the Social and Environmental Benets-Costs (externalities) of Organic Foods

Abstract

The cost-benet externalities for organic agriculture are improving. For the past few decades, organic agriculture has grown in terms of scale and scope. This growth has led to generally lower costs of expenses related to organic agriculture. Researchers have come up with a plethora of models that can draw cost benet analysis in terms of productivity, sustainability, returns and environmental costs (Balmford et al., 2018). At the same time, organic agriculture touches the values of the consumer more acutely than what they have in the past. This paper discusses the improved benet-cost (externalities) associated with organic agriculture and how they continue to improve. It focuses on the literature review of past and current relevant articles, conference proceedings papers and other reliable sources. The author centre on data sets that focus on the externalities of sustainability and costs. The conclusion of this paper indicates that there will be continued improvement of organic agriculture as an industry as technologies supporting organic agriculture improve. The paper recommends that there is a need to research the cost impact of farming externalities on the welfare of consumers and the choices that they make concerning foods.