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Use of Sector 19 Support Activities for Ag

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ehouk
I have been estimating the impact of land fallowing due to drought. The reduction in agricultural output is relatively straightforward, but if that is all you do then it appears as if nothing happened to that land. As such, I am now trying to figure out how to best capture the fact that those fallowed lands will still have some activity even though it will not result in production. For example, farmers might disc the fields to deal with weeds or hire in a crew to level the field, etc. My first thought was that I should reduce production (Sector 2 in my case) and then increase Sector 19 by an amount that is equal to the estimated expense of these farmland activities? Does this make sense? Would these types of activities (tractor work, leveling fields, etc.) be correctly captured in the output of sector 19? Thanks.
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    IMPLAN Support
    HI Eric. You approach looks fine. However, just a brief cautionary note concerning lost agricultural output. The loss of output from the land that is now fallowed is real and probably will be significantly higher than the new activities occurring on this land. Having said that, we agree with some of the activities you identify in preparing the land to prevent erosion and generate some potential revenue from it as well. We agree that disking and leveling the fields to deal with weeds, etc. would be captured in Sector 19. You can preview the types of activities in this sector by doing a sector search and typing in the word “Agriculture” and sorting by Industry Code to see all of the activities included in Sector 19. From your Post, it reads like you are talking about a “Net Analysis.” That is, you would want to analyze the economic impact of the loss in output produced from this land before it was fallowed. Second, you would analyze the impact of potential revenue(s) generated by the land now that it has been fallowed. Finally, you would subtract the difference between the two scenarios in terms of jobs, employee compensation, proprietor income, output, and tax revenues in the target region. In some regions of the country, hunting is a major revenue source for fallowed land. You probably find that the net effect will be a negative economic loss in all of these areas as they relate to this activity. We hope this helps.
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