Why Do Some Bt-Cotton Farmers in China Continue to Use High Levels of Pesticides?

China was the first developing country to introduce Bt cotton on a large scale. This paper provides an indepth economic analysis of Bt cotton production by small-scale farmers in China. Data were collected in 2002 in Linqing County, in Shandong Province and comprised a season-long cotton production monitoring with 150 farmers and complementary household interviews. For quality assessment, the Bt toxin concentration of the various Bt varieties used by the farmers was determined for each plot. All farmers were growing insect resistant Bt cotton varieties. Yet, they sprayed high amounts of chemical insecticides, out of which 40% were extremely or highly hazardous. The paper reviews methodological issues inherent to impact assessment of crop biotechnology and identifies market and institutional failure as possible reasons for continued high pesticide use. Using the damage function methodology the coefficients for both damage control inputs, i.e., Bt varieties (measured as toxin concentration), and insecticide quantity were not significantly different from zero. Results show that absence of enabling institutions and lack of farmer knowledge can considerably limit the benefits of Bt cotton for small-scale farmers. The paper points out the importance to include the institutional conditions in the evaluation of agricultural biotechnology in developing countries.     

A Question of Integrity: Variants of Bt Cotton,Pesticides and Productivity in Pakistan

Bt cotton remains one of the most widely grown biotech crops among smallholder farmers in lower income countries, and numerous studies attest to its advantages. However, the effectiveness of Bt toxin, which depends on many technical constraints, is heterogeneous. In Pakistan, the diffusion of Bt cotton occurred despite a weak regulatory system and without seed quality control; whether or not many varieties sold as Bt are in fact Bt is also questionable. We utilise nationally representative sample data to test the effects of Bt cotton use on productivity. Unlike previous studies, we invoke several indicators of Bt identity: variety name, official approval status, farmer belief, laboratory tests of Bt presence in plant tissue, and biophysical assays measuring Bt effectiveness. Only farmer belief affects cotton productivity in the standard production model, which does not treat Bt appropriately as damage‐abating. In the damage control framework, all Bt indicators reduce damage from pests. Biophysical indicators have the largest effect and official approval has the weakest. Findings have implications for impact measurement. For policy‐makers, they suggest the need, on ethical and productivity grounds, to improve variety information and monitor variety integrity closer to point of sale.     

Pesticide Productivity and Transgenic Cotton Technology: The South African Smallholder Case

This paper empirically investigates how the productivity of pesticide differs in Bt versus non‐Bt technology for South African cotton smallholders, and what the implications for pesticide use levels are in the two technologies. This is accomplished by applying a damage control framework to farm‐level data from Makhathini flats, KwaZulu‐Natal. Contrary to findings elsewhere, notably China, that farmers over‐use pesticides and that transgenic technology benefits farmers by enabling large reductions in pesticide use, the econometric evidence here indicates that non‐Bt smallholders in South Africa under‐use pesticide. Thus, the main potential contribution of the new technology is to enable them to realise lost productivity resulting from under‐use. By providing a natural substitute for pesticide, the Bt technology enables the smallholders to circumvent credit and labour constraints associated with pesticide application. Thus, the same technology that greatly reduces pesticide applications but only mildly affects yields, when used by large‐scale farmers in China and elsewhere, benefits South‐African smallholder farmers primarily via a yield‐enhancing effect.     

Bt Cotton,Pesticide Use and Environmental Efficiency in Pakistan

There is a broad literature on the impact of Bt cotton adoption in different countries, but few studies have explicitly looked at environmental and health effects from an economic perspective. We analyse the impact of Bt cotton on environmental efficiency in Pakistan, using farm survey data and a doubly heteroskedastic stochastic production function framework. Negative environmental and health effects of chemical pesticide use are quantified with the environmental impact quotient. Bt‐adopting farms have higher cotton yields, while using lower pesticide quantities and causing less environmental damage. Bt farms are both technically and environmentally more efficient than non‐Bt farms. Bt adoption increases environmental efficiency by 37%. Achieving the same reduction in negative environmental and health impact without Bt would cost conventional cotton farmers US$ 54 per acre in terms of foregone yields and revenues (7% of total revenues). Extrapolating this shadow price of the technology's health and environmental benefits to the total Bt cotton area in Pakistan results in an aggregate value of US$ 370 million. These benefits are in addition to the profit gains for Bt‐adopting farmers. Our results suggest that Bt technology can contribute to sustainable agricultural development.     

Bias from Farmer Self‐Selection in Genetically Modified Crop Productivity Estimates: Evidence from Indian Data

In the continuing debate over the impact of genetically modified (GM) crops on farmers of developing countries, it is important to accurately measure magnitudes such as farm‐level yield gains from GM crop adoption. Yet most farm‐level studies in the literature do not control for farmer self‐selection, a potentially important source of bias in such estimates. We use farm‐level panel data from Indian cotton farmers to investigate the yield effect of GM insect‐resistant cotton. We explicitly take into account the fact that the choice of crop variety is an endogenous variable which might lead to bias from self‐selection. A production function is estimated using a fixed‐effects model to control for selection bias. Our results show that efficient farmers adopt Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton at a higher rate than their less efficient peers. This suggests that cross‐sectional estimates of the yield effect of Bt cotton, which do not control for self‐selection effects, are likely to be biased upwards. However, after controlling for selection bias, we still find that there is a significant positive yield effect from adoption of Bt cotton that more than offsets the additional cost of Bt seed.     

Farmers’ risk preferences and pesticide use decisions: evidence from field experiments in China

China faces health and environmental problems associated with the use of agricultural chemicals, including pesticides. While previous studies have found that risk aversion affects pesticide use in China, they have focused primarily on commercial cotton farmers. In this study, we consider the case of smaller, semisubsistence and subsistence farmers in a poor and landlocked province of China (Yunnan). We use a field experiment to measure risk aversion and collect detailed data on farm production and input use to specifically ask whether risk aversion affects pesticide use, and whether this effect differs for subsistence farmers producing exclusively for home consumption versus semisubsistence farmers who produce both for home and the market. We find that risk aversion significantly increases pesticide use, particularly for subsistence farmers and for market plots by semisubsistence farmers. Further, this effect of risk aversion significantly decreases with farm size for subsistence farmers, but not for semisubsistence farmers, implying that pesticide use may be used to ensure sufficient food supply for home consumption. Finally, we find barriers to the use of pesticides for subsistence farmers, both in terms of financial constraints and economies of scale. This finding implies that risk‐mitigation strategies, such as crop insurance, may not target food security concerns of subsistence farmers. Given these different motivations for pesticide use, policymakers may wish to consider effective tools to support rural food security for farmers in the poorer regions of China in order to decrease pesticide use.     

Ecosystem impacts of pesticide reductions through Bt cotton adoption

This article examines the ecosystem impacts of transgenic Bt cotton technology resulting from reduced chemical pesticide use. Employing unique panel data from smallholder farmers in India, negative environmental and health effects of pesticide use are quantified with the environmental impact quotient (EIQ), with and without Bt technology. An environmentally sensitive dynamic production function is estimated, treating the environmental risk of pesticide toxicity as an undesirable output in the production process. Negative externalities are significantly lower in Bt than in conventional cotton. The reduction in EIQ through Bt technology adoption has increased from 39 per cent during 2002–2004 to 68 per cent during 2006–2008. Bt adoption has also contributed to higher environmental efficiency. Environmental efficiency is influenced by the quality of Bt technology: high‐quality Bt seeds are associated with higher environmental efficiency than lower‐quality seeds.     

The Adoption of Genetically Modified Cotton and Poverty Reduction in Pakistan

This article employs a propensity score‐matching approach to examine the direct effects of adoption of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton on yields, pesticide demand, household income and poverty, using cross‐sectional data from a survey of farmers in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Generally, the findings reveal that adoption of the new technology exerts a positive and significant impact on cotton yields, household income and poverty reduction, and a negative effect on the use of pesticides. The positive and significant impact of the technology on yields and household income is consistent with the potential role of new agricultural technology in directly reducing rural poverty through increased farm household income.     

Adoption of Bt Cotton and Impact Variability: Insights from India

There is a growing body of literature about the impacts of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton in developing countries. While many studies show remarkable benefits for farmers, there are also reports that question these results. Most previous studies consider impacts in deterministic terms, neglecting existing variability. Here we explain the main factors influencing the agronomic and economic outcomes. Apart from differences in pest pressure and patterns of pesticide use, germplasm effects can play an important role. Theoretical arguments are supported by empirical evidence from India. Better understanding of impact variability can help explain some of the paradoxes in the recent controversy over genetically modified crops.     

Pesticide use in Vietnamese vegetable production: a 10-year study

Vietnam has had varying success over the past decade with its pesticides policy. Some of the most toxic pesticides have been banned from the market. But while many countries have successfully decreased agricultural pesticide use per hectare, this has not (yet) happened in Vietnam. Due to insufficient pesticide management capacity of the Vietnamese government, pesticide types and quantities registered and distributed on the market have substantially increased in Vietnam over the last 10 years. A 10-year monitoring programme at farm level showed that pesticide use follows the increasing pesticide availability on the market, and many toxic and illegal pesticides are still being used. In an agricultural country dominated by millions of small-scale farmers and with limited state capacity for control at farm level, reduction of the use of the most toxic pesticides can best be achieved by more effective pesticide market control through stricter and more effective state regulations and implementation, aimed at eliminating illegal, low quality and counterfeit pesticides from the market. But even then, better state and private extension services, and greater state capacity for control and enforcement remain essential in enabling farmers to make better decisions about pesticide use.     

Managing Resistance Evolution in Two Pests to Two Toxins with Refugia

We use a regulatory model with resistance evolution in two pests to insecticidal Bt cotton and pyrethroids (a conventional insecticide) to examine non-Bt cotton (refuge) planting requirements designed to manage Bt-resistance evolution in the midsouth. Our analysis suggests that reduced refuge requirements would enhance producer profitability, sprayed refugia are more cost effective than unsprayed refugia, and producers would receive slightly higher returns under dynamic relative to static refuge policies. Pyrethroid susceptibility in one of the pests was a renewable resource, and toxin-mixture effects associated with pyrethroid use in Bt cotton were important considerations for midsouth refuge policies.     

Cotton farmers’ willingness to pay for pest management services in northern Benin

This study was carried out to assess cotton farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for pest management services in northern Benin. Targeted staggered control (TSC) has been introduced to reduce pesticide use in cotton cropping and generate an estimated benefit of FCFA48,800 (€74.40) per cotton hectare accruing from increased productivity and reduced pesticide cost. However, TSC application requires extra time for pest identification and scouting, and its adoption remains low due to the lack of funding to boost farmers’ awareness and cover training costs. An interval regression model was used to analyze responses to a double‐bounded contingent valuation survey with data collected from 300 cotton farmers. The results showed that 87.3% of cotton farmers were willing to pay for TSC services. Annual WTP per cotton hectare was estimated at FCFA16,962 (€25.80), revealing an existing demand for TSC adoption. Respondents' WTP was driven by farm and socio‐economic characteristics. Financial mechanisms managed by farmers could thus potentially foster technology adoption, and in turn, generate economic and environmental benefits.     

Valuing financial,health, and environmental benefits of Bt cotton in Pakistan

Data from a farm survey and choice experiment are used to value the benefits of Bt cotton in Pakistan. Unlike previous research on the economic impacts of Bt, which mostly concentrated on financial benefits in terms of gross margins, we also quantify and monetize health and environmental benefits associated with technology adoption. Due to lower chemical pesticide use on Bt cotton plots, there are significant health advantages in terms of fewer incidents of acute pesticide poisoning, and environmental advantages in terms of higher farmland biodiversity and lower soil and groundwater contamination. Farmers themselves value these positive effects at US$ 79 per acre, of which half is attributable to health and the other half to environmental improvements. Adding average gross margin gains of US$ 204 results in aggregate benefits of US$ 283 per acre, or US$ 1.8 billion for the total Bt cotton area in Pakistan.     

Farm-Level Economic Performance of Genetically Modified Cotton in Maharashtra, India

A study of the commercial growing of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton in India, compares the performance of over 9,000 Bt and non-Bt cotton farm plots in Maharashtra over the 2002 and 2003 seasons. Results show that since their commercial release in 2002, Bt cotton varieties have had a significant positive impact on average yields and on the economic performance of cotton growers. Regional variation showed that, in a very few areas, not all farmers had benefited from increased performance of Bt varieties.     

EU Food Safety Standards,Pesticide Use and Farm‐level Productivity: The Case of High‐value Crops in Kenya

This article provides an empirical analysis of the impact of European Union (EU) private food safety standards on pesticide use and farm‐level productivity among small‐scale vegetable producers in Kenya. We apply an extended three‐stage damage control production framework, accounting for multiple endogeneity problems, to farm‐level data collected from a random cross‐sectional sample of 539 small‐scale producers. Estimation results show that farmers producing vegetables for the domestic market use significantly lower quantities of pesticides than do export farmers. However, contrary to findings elsewhere, the econometric evidence here shows that both domestic and export‐oriented vegetable farmers in Kenya use pesticides at levels below the economic optimum. The results also show that the adoption of standards by export farmers does not have any significant impact on total pesticide use. However, adopter categories are distinguishable in terms of types of pesticide used, i.e. adopters use safer pesticides based on World Health Organization (WHO) classification. The third‐stage structural revenue model results demonstrate that adoption of standards has a positive and significant impact on revenue raised in vegetable production. Nevertheless, farmers producing for the export market are indistinguishable from those producing for the domestic farmers in terms of the total revenue earned from producing vegetables during the rainy season, on a ‘per acre’ basis. Although standards can potentially prevent resource‐poor smallholders from maintaining their position in the lucrative export markets, they can also result in positive changes in the production systems of those small‐scale farmers who adopt it, as shown by these results.     

基于SWOT分析的寿光市设施蔬菜减施农药对策研究

[目的]农药作为蔬菜生产中主要的投入品,在杀虫灭菌、控草护田、生长调节等方面发挥着重要作用,对于保障蔬菜供给意义重大。但是在设施蔬菜种植过程中,由于不合理、过量施用农药导致出现部分蔬菜产品农残超标、农药污染农田生态环境等问题,推进农药减施刻不容缓。[方法]文章运用SWOT分析方法研究寿光市设施蔬菜种植中减施农药的内外部条件,根据有利因素和不利因素调整发展思路,改善农药的不合理使用现状。[结果]通过分析发现,寿光市设施蔬菜种植中减施农药的优势是资源条件好、农户蔬菜种植经验丰富、安全用药意识高;劣势是病虫害抗药性渐强、农户传统的用药习惯根深蒂固且减施农药意愿低;机遇是消费者的需求升级、科学技术水平提高以及相关减施政策实施;挑战是当前市场竞争激烈且政府监管欠佳。[结论]推进设施蔬菜农药减施应采取以下对策:(1)统防统治与绿色防控技术并举,保障蔬菜的质量安全和生物多样性的发展;(2)提升意识与科学用药并重,促进当地蔬菜生产稳定发展;(3)政府监管与信息共享统筹,规范农资市场和农产品市场的交易行为;(4)农业保险与农业补贴兼顾,建立起适度超前、开放灵活政策保障体系。     

Transgenic varieties and productivity of smallholder cotton farmers in China

Genetically modified cotton varieties have greater production efficiency for smallholders in farming communities in China. We also find that the adoption of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton varieties leads to a significant decrease in the use of pesticides. Hence, we demonstrate that Bt cotton appears to be an agricultural technology that improves both production efficiency and the environment. In terms of policies, our findings suggest that the government should investigate whether or not they should make additional investments to spread Bt to other cotton regions and to other crops.     

Are pesticides risk decreasing? The relevance of pesticide indicator choice in empirical analysis

The reduction of adverse health and environmental effects from pesticide use is currently a top priority on the agricultural policy agenda. Efficient pesticide policies must take into account farmers’ application behavior, especially effects of pesticide use on economic risk. However, previous results regarding the direction of risk effects of pesticides are ambiguous. We show that the ambiguity in earlier studies could be due to the pesticide indicator selected. Indicators which fail to account for the heterogeneous properties of pesticides may be inapt for interpreting farmers’ pesticide use decisions. Our analysis, based on a rich panel dataset of Swiss wheat producers with highly detailed information on pesticide use, considers different pesticide indicators and multiple sources of uncertainty. Our key finding is that indicator choice affects the magnitude and sign of estimated risk effects. Estimates of pesticide productivity and risk effects are significantly higher for fungicides, and even reversed for herbicides when we measure pesticide use in simple quantity units (kilogram per hectare) - compared to the quality and intensity corrected Load Index. This means for example, that farmers will ceteris paribus use lower quantities of herbicides, but will increase the overall toxicity of the products applied with increasing risk aversion. We discuss implications of our findings for the design of pesticide policies and agricultural risk management instruments.     

Do Farmers Internalise Environmental Spillovers of Pesticides in Production?

Pesticides are used in agriculture to protect crops from pests and diseases, with indiscriminate pesticide use having several adverse effects on the environment and human health. An important question is whether the environmental spillovers of pesticides also affect the farmers’ production environment. We use a model of optimal pesticide use that explicitly incorporates the symmetric and asymmetric effect of pesticides’ environmental spillovers on crop production. The application focuses on panel data from Dutch cash crop producers. We show that pesticides have a positive direct impact on output and a negative indirect impact through their effects on the production environment.