ECONOMIC EVALUATION OF BT CORN REFUGE INSURANCE

Paul Mitchell (), Terrance Hurley and Richard L. Hellmich

No 21757, 2000 Annual meeting, July 30-August 2, Tampa, FL from American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association)

Abstract: The EPA has imposed mandatory refuge requirements for Bt crops to prolong the efficacy of Bt. Growers have no economic incentive to plant the required refuge because refuge crops are on average less productive and more risky. This paper evaluates refuge insurance--insurance that pays indemnities for yield losses on refuge due to insect damage--as a tool to increase grower compliance incentives. We determine actuarially fair insurance premiums, then evaluate the feasibility of private provision of refuge insurance and its impact on grower incentives to comply with refuge requirements. A private market for refuge insurance appears unlikely because our analysis suggests that even a 2% load on the actuarially fair premium makes growers unwilling to buy refuge insurance. This load is not sufficient to cover administrative costs and provide a normal economic return. Even actuarially fair refuge insurance increases grower compliance incentives less than 3%. This result occurs because the primary benefit of Bt corn is yield enhancement and not risk reduction, but refuge insurance only reduces risk. For refuge insurance to provide significant compliance incentives, conventional insurance products must be restructured to draw premiums from sources other than grower risk premiums.

Keywords: Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies; Risk and Uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29
Date: 2000
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/21757/files/sp00mi01.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Economic Evaluation of Bt Corn Refuge Insurance (2000)
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:aaea00:21757

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.21757

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2000 Annual meeting, July 30-August 2, Tampa, FL from American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().