Abstract:
The agriculture sector is essential for sustainable food production and maintaining
socio-economic stability. Throughout the world, this sector continually faces the
challenge of remaining profitable while addressing various environmental
concerns. Currently, Malaysia is one of the countries that aspire to fulfil the global
efforts towards sustainable agriculture. However, the challenge remains to assess
the economic cost of environmental emissions generated from these activities.
Given this, a study was carried out to evaluate the environmental cost associated
with the agricultural sub-sector of poultry production. The study applied the
method of life cycle assessment (LCA) to assess the overall environmental
impacts.
Following this, the approach of life cycle costing (LCC) and
environmental life cycle costing (ELCC) was adopted, whereby the results for
potential cost increase were assessed. The overall results indicated a potential cost
increase of 25.12% if the environmental costs are included in future production
costs. To avoid refusal among the producers, the best option is to encourage them
to mitigate and reduce emissions before policymakers can implement new policies
to impose the cost on the market. It is hoped that the findings in this study will
serve as a reference for various methods to assess the environmental cost related
to the agricultural sector in Malaysia.
