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Environmental Quality and the Economics of Agricultural Pest Control)
Author(s) -
Headley J.C.
Publication year - 1973
Publication title -
eppo bulletin
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.327
H-Index - 36
eISSN - 1365-2338
pISSN - 0250-8052
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2338.1973.tb02672.x
Subject(s) - damages , pest analysis , control (management) , pest control , agriculture , quality (philosophy) , dimension (graph theory) , environmental quality , risk analysis (engineering) , hazard , integrated pest management , environmental economics , business , economics , ecology , political science , mathematics , biology , marketing , philosophy , management , epistemology , pure mathematics , law
Even though there have been many actions to limit chlorinated hydrocarbons used to control insects, many significant environmental problems connected with agricultural pest control remain. To deal with environmental effects in pest control strategy requires economic evaluation even though there are analytical difficulties. Environmental effects of pest control methods can be given economic meaning through the use of implied values measured in terms of sacrifices of conventional benefits. Where the biological significance of damages from pest control methods is known, the problem is to evaluate the differences in net benefits for alternative strategies. However, for those damages which involve uncertainty some sort of hazard‐benefit analysis is needed with the ultimate decision made by persons responsible to society for value judgements. More co‐operation is needed by economists and pest control experts to provide the best information possible within the limits of their professional expertise including analyzing pest control methods in the time dimension. High quality scientific analysis reduces the uncertainty for political decisions.