Agricultural Production with Change and Uncertainty: A Temporal Case Study Simulation of Colorado Potato Beetle

Changes in climatic and policy environments combined with uncertainty related to stochastic environmental fluctuations make design of invasive pest policy challenging. These external changes are often exacerbated by changes in the species characteristics. We discuss facing local change and uncertainty when deciding ex ante on a specific policy strategy. Our empirical case deals with an invasive agricultural pest, Colorado potato beetle, and agricultural production in Finland. Invasions are modelled as temporally random events and stochasticity in key variables is built into the analysis. The viability of two specific policy options is evaluated given uncertainty and local change.Colorado potato beetle, protected zone, zone protegee, invasive alien species, Crop Production/Industries, Q1, Q28, Q58,

Economics of invasive alien species: pre-emptive versus reactive control

The expanding global economy presents various challenges to production and environmental systems worldwide. Biosecurity provides a framework for managing the risks presented by different types of diseases and species spread by globalisation. One element of biosecurity is protection against invasive alien species (IAS). These are species spread by human actions outside their natural zones of dispersal. IAS present a threat to biological diversity at all levels and may have a negative impact on the goods and services provided by ecosystems. IAS may result in non-production and production costs. The first category includes physical impacts materialising as environmental, health and cultural costs, whereas the second category includes the subsequent economic impacts, such as production losses, domestic market effects and trade effects. In addition, IAS may impose control costs either on the society or a specific sector, depending on the type of species and the chosen policy. Management of IAS is a public good and remains under-provided by the free market, which partly explains the involvement of the state in IAS control. A broad division of IAS management is between what is here called pre-emptive and reactive control. Pre-emptive control refers to actions taken to totally eradicate the IAS when found. Such actions reduce the probability of entry and/or establishment of IAS. Reactive control refers to letting a possible invasion to take place and be followed by application of reactive control measures, reducing the extent and magnitude of damages in the event of an invasion. Preventative actions are generally advocated as the preferred strategy to deal with IAS, but it is possible that the costs incurred due to an invasion are less than the costs incurred in continued preventative actions. In such a case, continued efforts to prevent the species from invading consume the limited resources and may lead to other, more dangerous, species not being targeted with sufficient resources. These two policies are in this study considered in the context of the Colorado potato beetle (CPB). The CPB is a destructive plant pest, whose main host plant in Finland is the cultivated potato. The potential for the beetle's range expansion to Finland has been shown by both genetic and climatologic studies, and it provides a convenient case for studying the effects of invasions, uncertainty and local change. Given the life history characteristics of the CPB, there are five important factors from an economic point of view. First, the beetle has spread very rapidly across the continent, although its spread has slowed down as it has approached its ecological limits. Second, in propitious environmental conditions its population size can increase extremely rapidly. Third, it is capable of causing significant damage to potato plants. Fourth, cold summers and winters hinder its establishment, but it is most likely capable of establishing in at least some parts of Finland. Finally, lack of natural predators and ability to develop resistance to chemical control substances make the beetle difficult and expensive to control. This thesis seeks answers to four specific issues: i) review and evaluate the scale, type and magnitude of impacts IAS are capable of causing; ii) specify the policy problem in IAS management and review how the institutional framework in Finland addresses the issue; iii) review existing cost-benefit studies on agricultural IAS and determine the components that such studies should include; and iv) undertake an economic risk assessment of the CPB in Finland and evaluate the conditions under which it is optimal to prevent the species from establishing. On basis of a literature review undertaken, we suggest ten points to be taken into account when conducting economic policy evaluations of IAS: i) choose at least two realistic policy options to evaluate; ii) consider all possible direct and indirect impacts, monetise the ones you can and take the others into account qualitatively; iii) describe which costs and whose costs are included in the analysis and how they are derived; iv) formalise the basis of the analysis; v) undertake an ex-ante analysis to supplement an optional ex-post analysis; vi) carry out sensitivity and uncertainty analysis; vii) consider how the impacts excluded from the quantitative analysis affect the results; viii) discuss to whom the costs and benefits accrue; ix) make a (conditional) policy recommendation; and x) relate the findings to the wider framework of biosecurity measures. The empirical analysis uses a cost-benefit framework to assess the policy response, comparing the costs of prevention with the costs that would ensue if the species is allowed into the country. The primary focus is on ex-ante analysis, although an ex-post assessment of past seven years is also conducted. The framework presented estimates expected aggregate costs over time, using Monte Carlo simulation and allowing stochastic variation in the key variables. In addition, linear temporal change in certain key variables is included in the analysis. The main lesson from the ex-post cost-benefit analysis carried out in this study is that it is not sufficient to look at the costs over only a short period of time. Protection against IAS is to a large extent an investment that may produce potentially very high revenues in terms of avoided costs in the future. The results of the ex-ante cost-benefit analysis indicate that the current policy based on a protection system is economically viable, provided that there will be some future change and a non-insignificant level of pest winter survival. Considered the other way round, we can give up protection if we are certain that there is no future change, pest winter survival stays permanently below about 20%, or potato crop losses will not exceed 5% of the yield. If we cannot be certain that one of these three conditions materialises, we should be cautious regarding the possibility of abandoning protection because the risk associated with giving up protection is at the extreme nearly thirty times greater than that associated with protection. Results also indicate that the fact that invasions come very seldom is not a valid argument for abandoning protection, and that it is the variable costs of the protection system rather than the fixed costs that are important in determining policy profitability. The sensitivity analysis suggests that winter survival, logistic spread rate and variable cost of protection are the most important variables in determining economic profitability. The aggregate results suggest that the current policy of CPB exclusion should be continued. The future challenge lies in considering the issue of IAS and diseases in a holistic biosecurity framework. Within this framework, the issue would be managed in an integrated fashion from the point of view of multiple threats, multiple pathways, multiple parties involved and multiple methods and stages of control. Many challenges lie ahead in planning a functioning framework to deal with the issue of biosecurity.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Fair policies for the coffee trade - protecting people or biodiversity?

We investigate the role that economic instruments can play in the eradication of poverty and preservation of biodiversity in agroforestry management in coffee production. Most of the world's coffee producers live in poverty and manage agro-ecosystems in regions that culturally and biologically are among the most diverse on the globe. Despite the relatively recent finding that bees can augment pollination and boost coffee crop yields substantially, the short-term revenues to be had from intense monoculture drive land-use decisions that destroy forest strips serving as habitats for pollinating insects. Our study investigates the possibility of multiple equilibria in the adoption of technology in coffee production; farmers specialize in environmentally detrimental (sun-grown) or sustainable (shade-grown)farming or both practices co-exist. We calibrate an empirical model to characterize the equilibria and investigate the ecological and economic impacts of alternative policy instruments, among these protection fees, price premiums and a minimum wage.Environmental Economics and Policy, Food Security and Poverty,

The Costs of Biosecurity at the Farm Level: the Case of Finnish Broiler

In the European Union, the animal health and food safety strategy includes managing biosecurity along the entire production chain. Farm-level biosecurity provides the foundation for this. However, the farm-level costs of preventive biosecurity have rarely been assessed. Yet many risk management practices are in place constantly regardless of whether there is a disease outbreak or not. We contribute towards filling this information gap by studying the costs incurred in preventive biosecurity by the Finnish poultry farms. In a preliminary analysis, we find that the cost of biosecurity is some 3.55 cents per bird for broiler producers and 75.7 cents per bird for hatching egg producers. The results indicate that work-time devoted to biosecurity represents some 8% of total work time on broiler farms and about 5% on breeder farms.Biosecurity, on-farm costs, poultry, Livestock Production/Industries,

Consumers' choice of broiler meat in Finland: the effects of country of origin and production methods

Among consumers there is an increasing interest and concern about the ways food is produced. This calls for the poultry industry to differentiate their products and production methods to directions valued by the consumers. In this study we use choice experiment to analyse the importance of broiler production method and the country of origin for the Finnish consumers. In the experiment, we offer several alternatives for regular broiler, including products that have been produced using organic methods, as well as products produced by emphasising animal welfare or consumer health aspects. The conditional logit model of consumer preferences for broiler meat in Finland revealed the very strong positive perceptions of domestically produced broiler products. Although the effect of production method was minor it also had an impact on consumer choice behaviour, particularly emphasising animal welfare in production increased the choice probability. The latent class analysis revealed the heterogeneity of consumer preferences but did not facilitate profiling the consumer groups based on socioeconomic data.Choice experiment, latent class analysis, preference heterogenity, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Meat Consumption Patterns and Intentions for Change Among Finnish Consumers

During the past few decades, meat has increasingly become a subject of controversies relating to health and safety, environment, and animal welfare. Even though these changes in perceptions of meat are not yet visible in aggregate consumption figures, they can be observed in individual consumption patterns and as intentions to change the consumption. In this study, we examine changes in meat consumption among the Finnish consumers taking into account both stated changes in the past and intended changes in the future. Based on these changes, we identify consumer segments and investigate in which ways these segments differ from each other socio-demographically and with respect to current meat consumption and the stated reasons for the change. The latent class analysis based on representative Internet survey data revealed nine consumer clusters that formed three cluster blocks. The results showed that a large number of people, over 40%, had stabile consumption patterns. A cluster block of 14% of consumers had already shifted their consumer patterns to contain more vegetables and less meat. One third of the consumers were identified to be in the middle of the change with a general tendency to decrease the use of meat and increase the use of vegetables. Although, environmental effects of meat and animal welfare issues were important reasons for change in some clusters, healthiness was the most salient stated reason for change in consumption habits.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Livestock Production/Industries,

An integrated simulation model to evaluate national policies for the abatement of agricultural nutrients in the Baltic Sea

This study introduces a prototype model for evaluating policies to abate agricultural nutrients in the Baltic Sea from a Finnish national point of view. The stochastic simulation model integrates nutrient dynamics of nitrogen and phosphorus in the sea basins adjoining the Finnish coast, nutrient loads from land and other sources, benefits from nutrient abatement (in the form of recreation and other ecosystem services) and the costs of agricultural abatement activities. The aim of this study is to present the overall structure of the model and to demonstrate its potential using preliminary parameters. The model is made flexible for further improvements in all of its ecological and economic components. Results of a sensitivity analysis suggest that investments in reducing the nutrient runoff from arable land in Finland would become profitable only if Finland’s neighbors in the northern Baltic committed themselves to similar reductions. Environmental investments for improving water quality yield the highest returns for the Bothnian Bay and the Gulf of Finland, and smaller returns for the Bothnian Sea. In the Bothnian Bay, the abatement activities become profitable because the riverine loads from Finland represent a high proportion of the total nutrient loads. In the Gulf of Finland, this proportion is low, but the size of the coastal population benefiting from improved water quality is high.ecosystem services, nutrient abatement, Monte Carlo simulation, recreation, valuation, Environmental Economics and Policy, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Leisure-time physical inactivity and association with body mass index : a Finnish Twin Study with a 35-year follow-up

Background: We investigated the stability and change of leisure-time physical inactivity in adult men and women during a 35-year follow-up. We also analysed the impact of long-term physical inactivity on the development of body mass index (BMI). Methods: In this population-based cohort study, 5254 Finnish twin individuals (59% women) participated in four surveys in 1975, 1981, 1990 and 2011. Mean age at baseline was 23.9 years. Individual long-term leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) was categorized into seven classes varying from 'persistently inactive' to 'persistently active'. We used the multivariate multilevel mixed-effects linear regression model and paired-sample t-test in the analyses. Co-twin control design was used for examining within-pair associations. Results: Of men 11%, and of women 8%, were persistently inactive. Among both sexes, the mean BMI slope trajectories were steeper among the persistently inactive and those who became inactive than among those who were persistently active. Overall, the inactive participants gained 1.4 kg/m(2) [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.2 to 1.7] more in weight than did the active participants from 1975 to 2011. Among twin pairs discordant for LTPA, the corresponding difference was 1.4 kg/m(2) (95% CI 0.83 to 2.0) in dizygotic pairs and 0.68 kg/m(2) (95% CI 0.05 to1.3) in monozygotic pairs. Conclusions: Over a 35-year time span from young adulthood, persistently inactive participants and those who had become inactive had greater weight increases than those who were persistently active. This association was also found in twin-pair analyses, although attenuated in monozygotic pairs. This may support the importance of LTPA in weight management, although further causal inference is required.Peer reviewe

Long-term leisure-time physical activity and other health habits as predictors of objectively monitored late-life physical activity - A 40-year twin study

Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) in old age is an important indicator of good health and functional capacity enabling independent living. In our prospective twin cohort study with 616 individuals we investigated whether long-term physical activity assessed three times, in 1975, 1982 and 1990 (mean age 48 years in 1990), and other self-reported health habits predict objectively measured MVPA measured with a hip-worn triaxial accelerometer (at least 10 hours per day for at least 4 days) 25 years later (mean age of 73 years). Low leisure-time physical activity at younger age, higher relative weight, smoking, low socioeconomic status, and health problems predicted low MVPA in old age in individual-based analyses (altogether explaining 20.3% of the variation in MVPA). However, quantitative trait modeling indicated that shared genetic factors explained 82% of the correlation between baseline and follow-up physical activity. Pairwise analyses within monozygotic twin pairs showed that only baseline smoking was a statistically significant predictor of later-life MVPA. The results imply that younger-age physical activity is associated with later-life MVPA, but shared genetic factors underlies this association. Of the other predictors mid-life smoking predicted less physical activity at older age independent of genetic factors.Peer reviewe

Predictive Association of Smoking with Depressive Symptoms : a Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Twins

Longitudinal, genetically informative studies of the association between cigarette smoking and depressive symptoms among adolescents are limited. We examined the longitudinal association of cigarette smoking with subsequent depressive symptoms during adolescence in a Finnish twin cohort. We used prospective data from the population-based FinnTwin12 study (maximum N = 4152 individuals, 1910 twin pairs). Current smoking status and a number of lifetime cigarettes smoked were assessed at the age of 14 and depressive symptoms at the age of 17. Negative binomial regression was conducted to model the association between smoking behavior and subsequent depressive symptoms among individuals, and within-pair analyses were conducted to control for unmeasured familial confounding. Analyses were adjusted for age, sex, school grades, drinking alcohol to intoxication, health status, family structure, parental education, and smoking, as well as for pre-existing depressiveness. The results of the individual-level analyses showed that cigarette smoking at the age of 14 predicted depressive symptoms at the age of 17. Compared to never smokers, those who had smoked over 50 cigarettes (incidence rate ratio, IRR = 1.43, 95% CI 1.28-1.60) and regular smokers (IRR = 1.46, 95% CI 1.32-1.62) had higher depression scores. The associations were attenuated when adjusted for measured covariates and further reduced in within-pair analyses. In the within-pair results, the estimates were lower within monozygotic (MZ) pairs compared to dizygotic (DZ) pairs, suggesting that shared genetic factors contribute to the associations observed in individual-based analyses. Thus, we conclude that cigarette smoking is associated with subsequent depressive symptoms during adolescence, but the association is not independent of measured confounding factors and shared genetic influences.Peer reviewe