The environmental evaluation of meat cattle keeping in Hungary and its externalities using benchmarking

Bakosné Böröcz, Mária – Fogarassy, Csaba

Keywords: beef cattle, extensive, benchmarking, environment, externalities

In our study we reviewed the conditions of extensive agricultural farming and its benefits based on environmental criteria. Furthermore we examined its external effects, which may affect the agriculture and the meat cattle breeding. Beef fattening, when done intensively, can cause huge environmental problems which may cause negative externalities for the society as well. To solve this problem, the European Union tries to steer this sector towards the grazing animal husbandry practice through an extensification premium. We used benchmarking to assess the cattle keeping methodologies. The aim of this method was to identify its external effects. Our examination found that the traditional technology accumulates most of the negative externalities, while the extensive and the ecological methods are the best solutions from the position of the environment.

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