Potential Bans of Corn and Soybean Pesticides: Economic Implications for Farmers and Consumers

摘要

Removing corn and soybean pesticides with alleged environmental and safety risks from the market could increase U.S. agricultural production costs, crop prices, farm incomes, and consumer expenditures, causing farmers to gain and consumers to lose. Banning all triazines, acetanilides, soil insecticides, or seed treatments would have the largest effects. The report uses an econometric-simulation model, incorporating relatively new developments in welfare economics, to analyze the economic implications of potential bans of corn and soybean insecticides, nematicides, fungicides, and herbicides through cost and yield assessments.