ABSTRACT
This article was stim ulated by a 199 7 American Agricultural Economics Association annual meeting preconference designed by Batie and Ervin. The authors fe lt that there was considerable interest and activity in business-led environmental management (also called corporate environmental management)— but
most o f the interest was found outside o f the agricultural sector and the profession. The conference was a means to investigate the extent, motivation, and con-
sequences o f business-led pollution prevention activities. The DuPont and the Stahlbush Island Farms
examples used in this article were drawn from discussions that took place a t the conference and which were published in the proceedings. In the article, the authors draw lessons fo r agriculture informed by the experiences o f nonagricultural businesses. They identify and d istill from these experiences the major roles for the public sector to enable agricultural business-led initiatives to flourish and to be successful.
