Optimal Control of Locusts in Subsistence Farming Areas

Amnon Levy ()

Economics Working Papers from School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia

Abstract: Locust swarms hit subsistence-staple-crop-growing households at random and are not privately controllable. A regional aerial-spraying scheme that supports these households’ livelihood at the least cost is proposed. The properties of this scheme are analysed and two steady states are identified. The saddle one is socio-economically superior to the stable spiral. Simulations reveal that the respective stationary probability of a household’s crop being devoured by the swarm diminishes with the number of households, yield per household, staple crop’s replacement price and spraying efficacy, but rises with the spraying cost coefficient, locusts’ multiplication rate and public planner’s discount rate.

Keywords: locust plague; subsistence farming; optimal control (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 O18 O21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
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Related works:
Working Paper: Optimal Control of Locusts in Subsistence Farming Areas (2007)
Journal Article: Optimal control of locusts in subsistence farming areas (2008)
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