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Economic Impact of Restricting Herbicide Use¹

ABSTRACT

The economic impact of restricting herbicide use is directly related to their real benefits. Farmer and consumer benefits from using herbicides are associated with the differences between a production function in which herbicides are used to control weeds and a similar but lower function for combinations of alternative weed control practices—not including herbicides. The lower function shows production without herbicides for the same dollar value of alternative resources—primarily land and labor. It also shows the additional dollar value of the alternative resources needed to get the same production when herbicides are not used. The latter is implicit in evaluating costs of restricting specific herbicides while maintaining production. In one study, it was estimated that banning the use of 2,4,5-T on 8 million acres of farm and nonfarm land in 1969 would have increased costs to farmers about $32 million, assuming current levels of production were maintained. However, if substitutes for 2,4,5-T could not include the related phenoxy herbicides, it was estimated that additional costs to farmers as a result of replacing 2,4,5-T would have been $44 million. In a related study it was determined that restricting the use of all phenoxy herbicides would increase United States farmers production costs about $290 million. In addition about 20 million more hours of family labor would be used and about 6 million more crop acres would be required.

Key Words: herbicide economics • farm economics • herbicide bans • herbicide cancellation • phenoxy herbicide bans • 2,4,5-T

¹ Paper presented Aug. 18, 1971, in New York City at the annual meeting of the ASA as part of the Division C-3 symposium "Fate and Economic Impact of Herbicides."

² Agricultural Economist, USDA, ERS, Farm Production Economics Div., Washington, D. C. 20250.

Received for publication December 28, 1971.