Valuing the Roundup Ready® Soybean Weed Management Program

Abstract

This study examines soybean grower adoption of the Roundup Ready® (RR) weed management program with and without a residual herbicide application, and grower concerns regarding weed resistance to herbicides using telephone survey data from of 357 growers in 2007. It also estimates the pecuniary and non-pecuniary benefits enjoyed by growers from their RR program. The results indicate that soybean growers planned to treat 29 percent of their RR acres with a residual herbicide in 2008. More than half (53%) of the growers survey were concerned about weed resistance. The estimated expected benefit of the RR program in 2008 was $10.17 per acre, which translates into about$727 million with 75.7 million acres of soybean in the U.S. in 2008. The estimated value per acre of the RR program with and without a residual was $8.78 and$12.83. The estimates also suggest that if growers were not using residual herbicides with the RR program, their benefits would be 28.4% lower. Alternatively, if all growers were required to use residual herbicides on their RR acres, the value of the RR program would be 46% lower. Simply increasing grower weed resistance concerns could increase residual herbicide use on RR acres by up to 7%. The same increase in residual herbicide use could be accomplished by decreasing the cost of residual herbicide applications on RR acres by $0.81 per acre.Roundup Ready, Soybean, Glyphosate, Weed Resistance, Benefits, Crop Production/Industries, Demand and Price Analysis, Farm Management, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,