Introduction

Abstract

Contemporary agricultural systems excel in their capacity to meet increasing food and fiber demands of growing populations and higher-income societies at ever-decreasing cost to consumers. The contributions to human welfare of modern agricultural systems are tremendous. But these systems also cause environmental degradation, the most important being water pollution. This book is about public policies for managing water pollution from agriculture. The public policy challenge that motivates this book is the essential need for policies that restructure agricultural systems to provide a balance between production efficiency, agricultural prosperity, and environmental protection. The approach presented in the book is that of economics, but the book is designed to be accessible to readers who are not trained in economics or environmental economics. While based on economics, the book provides a multi-disciplinary understanding of the agricultural problem that is essential to economic and policy analysis.