All the Production Costs of Intensive Livestock Farming: A Graphical Representation
Anna Pellanda
Published: February 05, 2022
Abstract
In microeconomics, the costs of intensive livestock farming are studied in the short and long term, just like any normal production costs, and they are represented by means of an envelope curve, but this approach is unable to illustrate them all. Nowadays, we speak of the “hidden” and/or social costs as well. The former are only hidden to those who prefer not to see them, and the latter contribute to the concept of economic costs. This wider view of the problem of production costs needs to be graphically represented, so here we propose a revised version of the envelope curve that succeeds in revealing all the costs of intensive livestock farming. The outcome is an L-shaped curve instead of a U-shaped one.