The study identifies the best practices not only in economic terms but also from a climate change perspective. However, organic rice farming is found to be more respectful of the environment, albeit at the expense of lower yields in the short term. Nevertheless, these practices ensure higher financial profits, even in the short term.It seems that decision-making based exclusively on traditional accounting information,and/or on data on the environmental performance of the specific agricultural productive stage tends to hide environmental degradation. Therefore,further research is needed, along with practical improvements in sustainability accounting, to provide essential guidelines for the better administration of natural resources.The remainder of this article is organised as follows. Section 2 discusses the advances made in the accounting of the environmental impact of farming. Section3 explains the methodology adopted. Section 4 presents the results and a discussion of these findings and, finally, section 5 offers some concluding remarks,while identifying some of the limitations of the study and avenues for further research.
Over recent decades, input-intensive agricultural technologies have brought about significant changes in agricultural production, especially, for cereal crops.The increasing use of genetically modified seeds, irrigation, chemical fertilisers,pesticides and mechanisation have, in some cases, resulted in higher yields. However, they have also resulted in undesirable anthropogenic causes of climate change with increased greenhouse gas emissions due to a growing dependence on scarce fossil fuels . Studies of the industrialisation of farming have provided evidence that certain practices mean the misuse of common resources. Agriculture’s vast energy consumption is today estimated at an annual 11 exajoules , and this amount is set to rise with expanding populations and the mechanisation of farming .Additionally, modern agricultural practices are having other environmental impacts, including, the degradation of soil and water quality, and the loss of biodiversity,wildlife habitats and landscapes . The heavy dependence of farming on chemical pesticides and fertilisers has increased in recent years and today they pose a serious threat to human health and the environment. However, despite the investment in pesticides, pests are calculated to destroy 50% of treated crops worldwide. Yet, at the same time, millions of humans suffer the effects of pesticide poisonings each year.
The overuse of chemical pesticides,combined with mono cropping, is also the cause of the loss of biodiversity ,while the overuse of fertilisers is one of the main causes of water pollutant runoff and leaching .In conventional farming, the increase in required inputs results not only in unwanted environmental degradation but also in an undesired rise in operating costs. Thus, the average net income per farm has declined and the average debt per farm has increased in the long term . As a result, a call has been made to shift the goal from maximising productivity to optimising agricultural production while upholding environmental and social justice .The need to reduce the GHG emissions from agriculture has highlighted the urgency of shifting to non-fossil fuels. Here, each new scenario requires a specific accounting measure and a method for predicting natural resource usemaximization. Accounting for natural resources in this way should provide an efficient system for monitoring, controlling and mitigating irresponsible be haviour, thus making it possible to achieve the aforementioned goals of maximization. The environmental and social elements involved in economic activities can be addressed through sustainability accounting, a school of practice that provides tools for performance measurement and reporting when considering such matters as carbon reduction and water shortages or surpluses attributable to climate change .
Research carried out to date monitoring the impact of agriculture on climate change has, in some instances, compared the productivity and environmental impact of different styles of farming, but it does not quantify differences in economic performance . Thus, various studies specifically analyse the differences in productivity of conventional and organic farming and although they take into account the environmental dimension, their focus is very much on technical efficiency. Clearly, the limitation is that technical efficiency is ultimately measured in terms of the yields, inputs and prices explicitly recorded in a farm’s accounts, and as such needs to be economic-centred. The research conducted to date tends merely to consider the minimisation of current expenses but it fails to take externalities into account.The solution proposed from within the academic world for revealing and “internalizing”farming externalities is that of placing a monetary value on them .This paper contributes to the analysis of how climate change externalities might be accounted for by presenting a microeconomic perspective for rice production and the measurement of the environmental impact of farming practices conventional and organic. The economic performance indicators used here include yields per hectare in kilograms, sales revenues, and income both before and after wages. These indicators have previously been considered as being representative of economic performance.