Chapter 10 - Socio-Economic and Environmental Cost-Benefit Analysis of Rice Cultivation

Abstract

This chapter focuses on available economic tools and techniques for the evaluation in monetary terms of the above costs and benefits, since in many cases they are not directly available from market information. That includes social evaluation of costs, risks and benefits of rice cultivation, considered both from a theoretical and, to some extent, also from an empirical point of view. This general issue is very complex and entails the more specific one of economic assessment of pesticide risk. However it seems of crucial importance to understand the overall complex economic interactions between the product, rice in this case, different production techniques, risks of health and environmental damages, to assess actual or potential, negative or positive, external effects of rice cultivation on the environment as well as on other economic activities and on social welfare. Moreover, the economics of rice production largely depends on many different domestic agricultural policies, including regulation of pesticide use, as well as international policies and trade agreements, both at the regional and world level. All these factors interact, in the real world, in order to define the actual production and trade levels in different countries and geographic areas, and, directly or indirectly, the effective adoption of specific agronomic techniques, and, among these, the use of different types of pesticides, in terms of quantity used, distribution modalities, timing, safety regulations and so on.