The Relationship between Contracting and Livestock Waste Pollution

This paper investigates factors and mechanisms that influence the relationship between contracting and animal waste pollution. The questions raised are whether contracting worsens livestock waste management problems and how to apportion the burden of regulation between the contracting parties in a socially optimal way. The paper shows that the potential linkages between contracting and animal waste depend on scale, specialization, and concentration of animal units, as well as on division of inputs and contract settlement rules. The long-run apportioning of an increase in costs of environmental compliance depends on the integrator's market power for grower services.