Measuring pesticide overuse and its determinants: Evidence from Vietnamese rice and fruit farms

Lan Tran, Theodoros Skevas and Laura McCann

Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 2023, vol. 67, issue 03

Abstract: Pesticides have long been important for the development of agricultural production. However, improper use of pesticides may result in inefficiency with respect to farm profitability, in addition to external effects of pesticide use on environmental and human health. This paper employs a production function that explicitly accounts for the role of damage abatement inputs (i.e. pesticides) in the production process, to examine the optimal use of pesticides. It then investigates determinants of pesticide overuse versus underuse and the intensity of overuse. The empirical application uses data on Vietnamese rice and fruit farms drawn from the 2016 Vietnamese Household Living Standards Survey. Results show about 95% of farmers overused pesticides for both rice and fruit farming systems. The Mekong Delta, also known as the ‘Rice Bowl’ of Vietnam, has higher levels of overuse on rice farms than two other regions. Overuse intensity is lower for female and poorer rice farmers while intensity is higher for those with more income and more family members. For fruit farms, younger farmers or those with more family members were more likely to overuse versus underuse pesticides.

Keywords: Crop Production/Industries; Environmental Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/343055/files/M ... ticide%20overuse.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aareaj:343055

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.343055

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics from Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().