Environmental auditing in agriculture: Pipe dream or practical tool?

Many non-agricultural businesses have environmental policies and seek to measure their impact on the environment through environmental auditing, In essence this requires that certain attributes of the company's interaction with the environment are quantified and monitored over time. In addition to enhancing environmental protection, financial advantages may also accrue from this process, and in theory the concept should be transferable to the agricultural situation. In practice, agricultural environmental auditing currently plays a role in ensuring compliance with certain production standards associated with 'quality' marketing schemes. Such schemes are unlikely to deliver environmental benefits on a large scale, but the alternative of a centrally organized auditing scheme which is related to payments from agricultural support budgets is probably too complex to be practicable.