From Pesticides to People 89Policies and Trade-offs
Pesticide use in agricultural production conveys the benefit of reducing losses due
to pests and disease. That same use, however, can cause adverse environmental and
health impacts. Previously, we cited a study that showed that pesticide use by farm-
ers was efficient from a narrow farm production perspective. Nevertheless, that
study examined pesticide use solely from the perspective of reducing crop losses. If
the adverse health and environmental effects were also included in the analysis, the
results would be different. Integrated assessment is one method for solving this
analytical problem. The Carchi research team devised an innovative approach to
integrated assessment called the Trade-off Analysis (TOA) method (Antle et al,
1998b; Stoorvogel et al, 2004).
The TOA method is an interactive process to define, analyse and interpret
results relevant to policy analysis. At its heart is a set of linked economic, bio-
physical and health models inside a user shell called the TOA Model. Based on
actual dynamic data sets from the field, we used simulations in the TOA method
to examine policy options for reducing pesticide exposure in Carchi.
The policy options we explored were a combination of taxes or subsidies on
pesticides, price increases or declines in potatoes, technology changes with IPM,
and the use of personal protective equipment. We examined the results in terms of
farm income, leaching of pesticides to groundwater and health risks from pesticide
exposure. Normally, policy and technology changes produce trade-offs – as one
factor improves, the other factor worsens. Our analysis of pesticide taxes and potato
price changes produced such a result. As taxes decrease and potato prices increase,
farmers plant more of their farm with potatoes and tend to use more pesticide per
hectare. Thus a scenario of pesticide subsidies and potato price increases produce
growth in income and increases in groundwater contamination and health risks
from pesticide exposure.
With the addition of technology change to these price changes, the integrated
analysis produced by the TOA model showed that a combination of IPM and
protective clothing could produce a win–win outcome throughout the range of
price changes: neurobehavioural impairment and environmental contamination
decreased while agricultural incomes increased or held steady (Antle et al, 1998c;
Crissman et al, 2003).
Transforming Awareness and Practice: The Experience
of EcoSalud
The unexpected severity of pesticide-related health problems and the potential to
promote win–win solutions motivated the research team to search for ways to
identify and break the pervasive cycle of exposure for the at-risk population in