Impact of environmental cost on the production cost of crops: farmers' perspective

The aim of this study was to determine the impact of environmental factors on the production cost of paddy, corn, and potato crops in Bangladesh based on the farmers' perspective. A total of 210 cultivators of the three crops were surveyed through face-to-face interviews using an unstructured questionnaire. Environmental costs were represented by air, water, deforestation, and sound pollution costs. Multiple regression models were used to analyse the impact of environmental costs on the production cost. The results showed that air and water pollution costs have a statistically significant positive impact on the production cost of all three crops. On the other hand, sound pollution cost and deforestation cost had no significant impact on the production costs of all three crops, except for the case of deforestation cost on corn cultivation. The findings of this study can contribute to efforts to promote sustainable agriculture practices by considering intrinsic production costs that include environmental costs.