Abstract
The banana leaf spotting disease yellow Sigatoka is established and actively controlled in Australia through intensive chemical treatments and diseased leaf removal. In the State of Queensland, the State government imposes standards for de-leafing to minimise the risk of the disease spreading in 6 banana pest quarantine areas. Of these, the Northern Banana Pest Quarantine Area is the most significant in terms of banana production. Previous regulations imposed obligations on owners of banana plants within this area to remove leaves from plants with visible spotting on more than 15 per cent of any leaf during the wet season. Recently, this leaf disease threshold has been lowered to 5 per cent. In this paper we examine the likely impact this more-costly regulation will have on the spread of the disease. We estimate that the average net benefit of reducing the diseased leaf threshold is only likely to be $1.4million per year over the next 30 years, expressed as the annualised present value of tightened regulation. This result varies substantially when the timeframe of the analysis is changed, with shorter time frames indicating poorer net returns from the change in protocols. Overall, the benefit of the regulation change is likely to be minor.
Highlights
The Sigatoka disease complex affects banana cultivation in many countries
The total damage banana producers in the NAPQA experience because of the dis‐ ease in time period t is estimated by: dt = Yt Pt At + Vt At where: Yt is the mean change in banana yield resulting from infection in year t; Pt is the prevailing domestic price for bananas in year t; Vt is the increase in variable cost of production per hectare induced by M. musicola onplantation management methods in year t; and At is the area infected with M. musicola in year t
M. musicola is assumed to be present within the Northern Banana Pest Quarantine Area (NBPQA) at the beginning of time period 1
Summary
The Sigatoka disease complex affects banana cultivation in many countries. The dis‐ ease yellow Sigatoka (Mycosphaerella musicola) is established and actively controlled in Australia through intensive fungicide treatments and diseased leaf removal (Henderson et al 2006). Less virulent than the malign black Sigatoka (M. fijiensis), M. musicola imposes substantial costs on affected banana growers. This is true for Australia’s premier banana growing regions located in the State of Queensland, including the Innisfail-Tully area. The Plant Protection Regulation 2002 imposed an obligation on the owner of land in a pest quarantine area to treat every banana plant by removing every leaf from the plant that has visible symptoms of M. musicola (and another endemic disease, banana leaf speckle (M. musae)) on more than 15 per cent of any leaf at any time between 1 November and 31 May or on more than per cent of any leaf at any time between 1 June and October
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