Is Area-wide Pest Management Useful? The Case of Citrus Greening
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- Associate Professor Ariel Singerman is visiting from the University of Florida and will present 'Is Area-wide Pest Management Useful? The Case of Citrus Greening', in the QAAFI Science Seminar Series.
Citrus greening or Huanglongbing (HLB) currently poses a severe threat to citrus production worldwide. No treatment or management strategy is yet available to cure the disease. While working on developing short- and long-term treatments, scientists recommend controlling the vector of the disease, and area-wide pest management has been proposed as a superior alternative to individual pest management. We analyzed a unique data set of farm-level citrus yields in Florida that allowed us to test the hypothesis. We found that yields of blocks located in an area with higher participation in coordinated sprays were 28%, 73% and 98% higher in 2012/13, 2013/14, and 2014/15, respectively, compared to the yields of blocks under the same management but located in an area with lower participation; providing evidence on the efficiency of a well-performing pest management area to deal with HLB. In addition, we present survey data that provide insights about producers’ behavior and attitudes toward the area-wide pest management program. Despite the relatively high economic benefit we found area-wide pest management can provide, the strategic uncertainty involved in relying on neighbors seems to impose too high of a cost for most growers, who end up not coordinating sprays.
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