Cost-benefit analysis of risk management measures and assessment of the areal risk to plant health

Abstract:

The risk posed by quarantine pests is managed with plant health legislation and the related measures. Risk management measures include official plant health checks, and measures carried out by the producers. Both the cost and the effectiveness of the risk management measures depend largely on how the measures are targeted. The aim of this project is to enable better allocation of risk management resources based

a) on the cost-effectiveness of the measures, and b) on the areal differences in the risk. Cost-effectiveness of the measures will be assessed with cost-benefit analysis. Both the official plant health checks and measures carried out by the producers will be considered. Also, several sectors of plant production will be considered. The aim is to analyze in what kind of situations the measures have the potential to be the most vs. the least cost-effective. The areal differences in risk to plant health will be studied by analyzing the spatial aggregation of the places of production of different crop plants. The aim is to locate the areas where the probability of entry and establishment of quarantine pests is highest, and where the threatened value of production is especially high. Based on the results the risk management resources can be allocated to the sectors of plant production and to the geographical areas where the effectiveness of the measures is likely to be especially high.

Aims:

The aim of this project is to enable better allocation of risk management resources based a) on the cost-effectiveness of the measures, and b) on the areal differences in the risk. Based on the results the risk management resources can be allocated to the sectors of plant production and to the geographical areas where the effectiveness of the measures is likely to be especially high.

Results:

The results will be presented to the Finnish plant health officials in a workshop. The aim of the workshop is to reevaluate the allocation of the risk management resources based on the results of this project and the previous risk assessment projects.

Keywords:

Plant health, risk assessment, plant pest, cost-benefit analysis, geographic information 

Responsible project leader:

Hannunen, Salla, Senior Researcher, Ph.D., Evira, Risk Assessment Research Unit

Person at Evira responsible for the projects:

Tuomola, Juha, Researcher, Risk Assessment Research Unit

In cooperation with:

Natural Resources Institute Finland Luke

Project status:

Previous

Year of commencement:

2014

Year of completion:

2017

Project is financed by:

The Development  Fund of Agriculture and Forestry (MAKERA) (1849/312/2013)

Evira's project code:

8266

Page last updated 7/10/2019