摘要：To analyze whether or not environmental regulations impact the structure of animalagriculture, it is first necessary to ask "what is meant by structure." Numerous definitions ofstructure exist and are commonly used to analyze dramatic changes occurring in the animalagriculture subsectors. These changes, and therefore the term structure, may refer to suchfactors as the distribution of sales, revenues, and profits; the importance of farm income as theprimary family income source; concentration of production within a geographic region or by asmall number of firms; degree of specialization; ownership and control of inputs and outputs;and the number and size distribution of farms (Offutt, Hoppe et al.). While each of thesefactors helps to evaluate changes occurring in the animal agriculture subsectors, we suggestthat the crux of the economic and social debate surrounding environmental regulations and thestructure of industrialized animal agriculture centers around three factors: changes in the sizeof operations, changes in the form of vertical coordination, and shifts in the location of animalagriculture. To that end, we ask the question "have environmental regulations impacted thesethree factors." Furthermore, we look beyond the current structure and address the question"might environmental regulations affect the future structure of animal agriculture."
