Program Definitions and Public Costs, Beltwide Boll Weevil/Cotton Insect Management Programs (Appendix D)

Implementation plans were outlined and respective public costs were estimated for six beltwide boll weevil/cotton insect management programs in boll weevil-infested areas. Public cost is only one component of an economic evaluation of alternative programs. If fully implemented, annual public costs of the programs would be: current insect control (CIC), $2.5 million; optimum pest management with incentives (OPM-I), $36 million; OPM with phased incentives (OPM-PI), $7 million; OPM with no incentives (OPM-NI) $7 million; OPM-NI with boll weevil eradication (OPM-NI-BWE), $7.5 million; and CIC-BWE, $3 million. However, estimated public and private costs would total $460 million during the 9 years to eradicate the boll weevil. Also, public costs for diapause treatments for the OPM program with phased incentives would total about $6l million during the 3 years of implementation.