Some problems associated with the analysis of the costs and benefits of pesticides

The benefits of pesticides may be estimated in terms of avoided crop losses from pests, diseases and weeds. Farm-level costs include the costs of the pesticides, and their application. Both are relatively easy to estimate. However, pesticides also have social costs due to externalities, i.e. those effects outside the market mechanism. A full cost-benefit analysis should include these. There are a number of techniques for estimating the effects of pesticides on both the environment and human health. Environmental economics also provides a range of possible techniques for valuing these effects in economic terms and a range of approaches have been adopted in the literature. All have considerable theoretical and practical problems due to the wide range of effects of pesticides and the difficulties of quantifying them. Given that the effects of pesticides on the environment and human health should be taken into account in assessing their optimum levels of usage by society, alternative approaches may be required which estimate these effects in non-economic terms, and which compare them to the economic benefits of pesticides.