Analysis of the Colorado potato beetle protection system in Finland

Abstract

Invasive species, including plants, insects and other pests, are a serious threat to agricultural production and to the environment in general. Finland has traditionally had a favourable situation concerning invasives, partly due to its isolated geographical location. The situation may now be changing and one of the currently increasing threats is the Colorado potato beetle (CPB). Finland has designed a CPB protection policy incorporating a protected zone, which is commonly used to deal with invasive plant pests in other European countries. Within this zone, the randomly occurring CPB invasions are collectively fended off, to prevent the establishment of a permanent pest population and to minimise potential damage. This paper evaluates the economics of the current protection programme, comparing this to a hypothetical situation in which the current pre-emptive policy is abandoned and control relies on producers’ individual reactive protection measures. The annual random pest invasions are modelled in a static stochastic framework. To date the pest has not been able to establish a permanent population in Finland. According to our analysis, the currently exercised pre-emptive policy is the cost-efficient choice at this point. The relatively low expected invasion magnitude is one of the key factors supporting the efficiency of the current system. Another reason is the fairly small damage incurred. However, when the invasions become larger and more frequent or the pest strains more cold-resistant, the future situation may change.

Introduction

Threats to animal and plant health by invading organisms are increasing due to trade liberalisation and increased movement of goods and people. Worldwide, some 480,000 non-native species have been introduced to various ecosystems (Pimentel et al., 2001). The losses in the US alone amount to 138 billion US$ (bUS$) annually, with about a quarter of all agricultural output annually lost due to damages imposed by invasive pests or costs of their control (Schmitz and Simberloff, 1997, Pimentel et al., 1999). Globally, agricultural losses to introduced species are estimated at 55–248 bUS$ annually (Bright, 1999).

Protection against invasive organisms is a public good of the weakest link type (Perrings et al., 2002). The effectiveness of protection depends on the weakest link in the protection chain. It does not matter how well other parts of the chain provide protection if the species gets into the country through the weakest control point. Thus invasive organism control is typically under-provided by the free market. This partly explains the involvement of the state in protection.

Besides damages, introduced species also produce about 98% of global food supply, their value being more than 5 trillion US$ annually (Pimentel et al., 2001). It is thus appropriate to aim for, in the words of Perrings (2000), a regime, which “allows the social benefits of new introductions, whilst protecting society from the associated risks.” We discuss one such regime in relation to a specific invasive plant pest.

Invasive species affect the environment, natural resources and resource-based production in Finland as in other regions. Given the importance of Finnish forest industry, perhaps the potentially most important invasive pest in economic terms may be the pinewood nematode. In agricultural production, Colorado potato beetle (CPB) (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) is potentially one of the most important pests. Traditionally Finland's situation concerning invasive pests has been favourable, partly due to the isolated geographical location. However, the situation may be changing with, for instance, modified agricultural practices in surrounding countries, potential increases in temperature and general increases in trade and the movement of goods. This prompts interest in finding efficient protection policies that would also function under changing conditions.

The CPB is currently controlled as a quarantine plant pest that has to be eradicated if encountered in Finland. The goal of protection is to keep the CPB from spreading to Finland and thus to control its impact on agricultural production. The Finnish protection system is based on the European Union system of protected zones, which aims to prevent the introduction and spread of species harmful to plant production. It is understood that pests cannot be fended off perfectly, for instance, the CPB cannot be prevented from entering Finnish soil as a result of storms. Hence, the most important goal of the policy in the case of the CPB is to keep the pest from establishing a permanent population. This study evaluates the desirability of continuing the policy in the future.

In an earlier paper, Heikkilä and Peltola (2003) conceptualised the issue and constructed an illustrative example of the topic. The main purpose of the current study is to evaluate the viability of the Finnish CPB programme in more practical terms and to compare this to a potential alternative, where collective protection would be abandoned and control would be left to individual producers.

In this paper, we model invasions as random events, i.e. we include stochasticity in key variables. We further allow imperfections in policy options. In other words, the protection system is allowed to be less than 100% effective. In the context of imperfect policy, we test two cases; in the first of these, the protection programme simply fails. In the second case, we allow protection to have some positive impacts, even when it fails. The balance of the paper is organised as follows. Section 2 constructs a theory-based static economic simulation model of certain policy options, followed in Section 3 by numerical evaluation. Section 4 draws some conclusions.