Productivity effect and overuse of pesticide in crop production in China

作     者：ZHANG Chao Guanming Shi SHEN Jian HU Rui-fa 

作者机构：School of Management and EconomicsBeijing Institute of Technology Department of Agricultural and Applied EconomicsUniversity of Wisconsin 

出 版 物：《Journal of Integrative Agriculture》 (农业科学学报（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2015年第14卷第9期

页      面：1903-1910页

核心收录：

学科分类：09[农学] 0710[理学-生物学] 0832[工学-食品科学与工程（可授工学、农学学位）] 090403[农学-农药学(可授农学、理学学位）] 0830[工学-环境科学与工程（可授工学、理学、农学学位）] 1004[医学-公共卫生与预防医学(可授医学、理学学位)] 0905[农学-畜牧学] 0906[农学-兽医学] 0904[农学-植物保护] 0901[农学-作物学] 0703[理学-化学] 0902[农学-园艺学] 0713[理学-生态学] 

基　　金：financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71173014 and 71210004) the China Scholarship Council (201306030053) 

主　　题：productivity effect,damage control agent,pesticide overuse,marginal product 

摘      要：Chinese farmers are often accused of overusing pesticides that play a crucial role in enhancing crop yield by reducing losses to crop pests. Pesticide overuse has caused a series of negative health and environmental externalities. This paper quantiifes the productivity effect and the optimal amount of pesticides in rice, cotton and maize production in China from the economic perspective. Using survey data col ected in 2012 and 2013, both Cobb-Douglas and Weibul damage control speciifcations are used to estimate the production function. Results show that pesticides have statistical y signiifcant pro-ductivity effect on crop yield. On the condition of Weibul damage control speciifcations, the marginal products of 1 kg of the active ingredients of pesticides for rice, cotton and maize are 71.06, 22.73 and 98.45 kg, respectively. However, 57, 64 and 17%of the actual amount of pesticides are overused for rice, cotton and maize, respectively. Moreover, the productivity effect of pesticides would be overestimated using Cobb-Douglas speciifcation without incorporating a damage control agent.