Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
For the grower, a 0.5% surcharge on pesticides would not be excessively
burdensome.Farmers who spent $10000 per year on herbicides would have to
pay an additional $50.Moreover,if the tax were used to fund the development
of ecologically benign alternatives to pesticides, growers would recoup some
of this expense in the form of reduced input and health costs.To some extent,
a pesticide surcharge would probably be passed on to consumers as a slight
increase in food prices. However, if the tax paid for development of ecological
methods of pest management, consumers would also spend less on general
taxes for the treatment of environmental and health problems caused by pes-
ticide use. As long as the external costs of pesticides are denied and ignored,
funding research with a tax on pesticides will appear politically impossible.
Recognition of those external costs, however, would allow this type of
approach to develop rapidly. Weed scientists need to realize that their disci-
pline would be a major beneficiary of such a tax, although their allegiance to
herbicide technology would have to change.
Finally, governments need to assist farmers in obtaining information and
management skills necessary for ecologically based strategies. The success of
farmer-first, information-intensive approaches can be seen in the implemen-
tation of ecologically based strategies for managing insect pests in Asian rice
production systems. When governments in Indonesia and six other Asian
nations reduced pesticide subsidies and organized season-long “farmer field
schools” stressing an ecosystem approach to crop health, participating
farmers reduced insecticide use, increased yields, and improved net returns
(Pretty, 1995, p. 227; Thrupp, 1996, p.7; Pretty, Vorley & Keeney, 1998). Key to
this success was the development of “schools without walls” in rice fields
where farmers learned new principles, concepts, and terms relating to crop,
pest, and natural enemy management. Farmers learned to make observations
in their own fields and present their observations and management decisions
to other farmers and members of research and extension teams working with
them. Farmers used dyes in their knapsack sprayers to observe where the pes-
ticides actually were deposited. “Insect zoos” were developed to increase
farmer knowledge of pest life cycles, and predation and parasitism of pests by
natural enemies. Surveys conducted in Indonesia to measure the impact of
this training showed that rice yields increased an average of 0.5 Mg ha 1 ,
whereas the average number of insecticide applications fell from 2.9 to 1.1 per
season.About a quarter of the 110000 Indonesian farmers who completed the
program by 1993 applied no pesticides thereafter (Pretty, 1995, p.227).
Industrialized countries can make similarly large changes in agricultural
practices. As a result of government policy initiatives, shifts in research and
extension priorities, and attention to farmers' concerns, Sweden's annual use
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