Estimating the economic impact of environmental investments on retail costs and dealer strategies for offsetting these costs

摘要

Retail agrichemical dealers have become increasingly familiar with the concept of containment over the past several years. Currently, containment regulations are in place in 13 states, and are being drafted in 7 others. Agrichemical dealers in these states will be required to assess the potential environmental impact of their operating practices on the land under and around the retail production site. A recent survey of TVA model site and individual technology demonstration dealers attempted to gain insight into the impact these investments in containment structures, changing operating practices, and state containment regulations were having on annual production costs. The purpose of this paper is to (1) provide the agrichemical dealer a methodology for quickly estimating the potential impact that environmental investments will have on annual production costs, and (2) to evaluate the effectiveness of alternative management strategies employed to offset some, or in some cases, all of these additional costs.