Farm Machine Use and Pesticide Expenditure in Maize Production: Health and Environment Implications.

Jing Zhang,Jianhua Wang,Xiaoshi Zhou

doi:10.3390/ijerph16101808

Abstract

Although chemical pesticide use has increased agricultural productivity, it has caused adverse effects on human health and the environment. For example, pesticide exposure may result in the incidence of a human health condition (e.g., heart disease, immune disorders, cancer, and damaged skin) and it can pollute air, water, and soil conditions and damage biodiversity. Mitigating the negative externalities associated with pesticide use is essential to improve human health and environmental performance. In this study, we are trying to explore whether farm machine use reduces pesticide expenditure by analyzing farm household survey data collected from 493 maize farmers in China. An endogenous switching regression model is employed to address the sample selection bias issue associated with voluntary farm machine use. The empirical results reveal that farm machine use exerts a negative and statistically significant impact on pesticide expenditure. The findings highlight the important role of farm machines in helping reduce pesticide expenditure, which is, in turn, beneficial for improving human health conditions and environmental performance.

Highlights

Modern agriculture depends heavily on pesticide use, which has successfully increased productivity but led to increasing concerns regarding the environment and human health [1,2,3,4,5].For example, Richter [6] estimated that about 26 million pesticide poisoning cases resulted in 220 thousand deaths per year worldwide
The primary objective of this study is to analyze the impact of farm machine use on pesticide expenditure, utilizing data observed at the farm-level in rural China
With respect to the expenditure of pesticides, the results show that the average pesticide expenditure for farm machine users was 14.07 Yuan/mu lower than that of nonusers, which is statistically significant for the mean difference

Summary

Introduction

Modern agriculture depends heavily on pesticide use, which has successfully increased productivity but led to increasing concerns regarding the environment and human health [1,2,3,4,5].For example, Richter [6] estimated that about 26 million pesticide poisoning cases resulted in 220 thousand deaths per year worldwide. Modern agriculture depends heavily on pesticide use, which has successfully increased productivity but led to increasing concerns regarding the environment and human health [1,2,3,4,5]. China is the world’s largest pesticide user and experienced a dramatic increase in pesticide use. The quantity of pesticide used was dramatically increased over time, from 76.53 thousand tons in 1990 to 176.30 thousand tons in 2014 (see Figure A1 in Appendix A). The booming demand for pesticide in China expanded the share of total world pesticide use and maintained the proportion above 40% over time after 1995. A zero-growth action plan for pesticide use has been proposed in China to mitigate agricultural environmental pollution and promote environmental sustainability [7]

Objectives

Results

Conclusion