Coping with Ex-ante Regulations for Planting Bt Maize: The Portuguese Experience

This article investigates the attitude and practices of Bt and non-Bt maize farmers in Portugal. Thirty-seven Bt maize farmers were interviewed, representing 22.5% of the total number of Bt maize notifications in the country and 31.5% of the total area planted with Bt maize in 2007. Additionally, 66 non-Bt maize farmers were surveyed in an attempt to investigate their opinion on the Bt technology, its viability, and its future. The most interesting finding is that almost half of all the surveyed maize farmers stated that the ex-ante regulations are rigid and difficult to appl

Economic analysis of pesticide use and environmental spillovers under a dynamic production environment

Pesticides are used in agriculture to protect crops from pests and diseases, with indiscriminate pesticide use having several adverse effects on the environment. In an era of an increasing public awareness on pesticides’ environmental spillovers, the EU is trying to update its pesticide policy by using economic incentives, aiming at reducing pesticide use and environmental spillovers. This dissertation focuses on assessing how pesticide use and its related environmental spillovers are affecting farmers’ production environment under a dynamic production setting, thus assisting policy makers in designing optimal pesticide policy tools

Is biotechnology (more) acceptable when it enables a reduction in phytosanitary treatments? A European comparison of the acceptability of transgenesis and cisgenesis

Reduced pesticide use is one of the reasons given by Europeans for accepting new genetic engineering techniques. According to the advocates of these techniques, consumers are likely to embrace the application of cisgenesis to apple trees. In order to verify the acceptability of these techniques, we estimate a Bayesian multilevel structural equation model, which takes into account the multidimensional nature of acceptability and individual, national, and European effects, using data from the Eurobarometer 2010 73.1 on science. The results underline the persistence of clear differences between European countries and whilst showing considerable defiance, a relatively wider acceptability of vertical gene transfer as a means of reducing phytosanitary treatments, compared to horizontal transfer

Do European Union Farmers Reject Genetically Modified Maize? Farmer preferences for Genetically Modified Maize in Greece

The new EU proposal (IP/10/921) states that bans on genetically modified (GM) crops should not be based on environmental and health grounds, and it proposes a set of alternative reasons—including public order and morals—that can be cited by member states. This reveals the increasing importance of stakeholders’ attitudes in GM crops’ release decisions. This article analyzes farmers’ attitudes and perceptions toward GM maize based on a survey of large-area Greek farmers in Northeastern Greece. A considerable number of respondents (61%) would adopt GM maize if Greece lifts the ban on GM maize cultivation. This result opposes recent findings from countries strongly opposing GM crops (such as France and Hungary), where bans are in line with the majority view of farmers. The ban is against what the majority of large-area farmers in Greece would choose if allowed

Reducing pesticide use and pesticide impact by productivity growth: the case of dutch arable farming

This paper employs a dynamic Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model to measure the composition of productivity growth of pesticides and the environmental impacts of pesticides. The application focuses on panel data of Dutch arable farms over the period 2003–07. A bootstrap regression model is used to explain farmers' performance, providing empirical evidence of the impact of producer-specific characteristics and environmental factors. The results show that Dutch arable farms have substantial inefficiency in the use of pesticides and high pesticide environmental inefficiency, and appear rather unconcerned about the environmental impacts of their current pesticide use decisions on next period's production environment