Cotton Boll Weevil An Evaluation of USDA Programs : a Report (1981) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
APPENDIX C: ADDITIONAL COMMENTS ON THE USDA ECONOMIC EVALUATION
APPENDIX C: ADDITIONAL COMMENTS ON THE USDA ECONOMIC EVALUATION
Pages 110-119
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 110... ...
. Goals and Approach The overall goal of the economic evaluation was to facilitate the choice of a beltwide cotton insect management program and more specifically "to estimate and evaluate the current and future localized and beltwide economic impacts of alternative boll weevil/cotton insect management programs" (see page 2, Economics and Statistics Service l98lb)
|
From page 111... ...
The prospect that economic growth may be stimulated in the boll weevil belt relative to other cotton areas as a consequence of public boll weevil management may make public action more or less desirable. Fourth, other consequences may favor more public participation in cotton insect control such as "the joy of being free from boll weevil," or limit public participation such as the fear of urban taxpayers that public costs may overrun.
|
From page 112... ...
The economic report does not describe completely the procedure and qualification of experts used to generate program costs. The experts formulating program and public cost data seem to have been less numerous, less diverse in opinion, and less representative of the full spectrum of expert opinion than the panel of experts involved in generating the data on cotton yield and control cost change.
|
From page 113... ...
34 (Economics and Statistics Service l98lb) Dl980-l98l production from an unpublished description of the econometric model by Robert Taylor obtained at the April l, l98l meeting of the USDA Economic Evaluation Team in Arlington, VA "From Table 8, p.
|
From page 114... ...
boll weevil control only about 0.l percent would be added to the world vegetable oil aggregate. This probably would depress world oilseed prices less than 0.5 percent and not 4.8 percent as USDA estimates.
|
From page 115... ...
Before public eradication of the boll weevil USDA estimates that at $0.76 per pound ll.5 million bales of cotton lint will be offered (the intersection of the supply curve before eradication, SQ, and the Demand Curve, D, in Figure C.l)
|
From page 116... ...
ll6 I i.20r i.oo 080 LU E 06° a. § O 0.40 0.20 t> 468 MILLION BALES OF COTTON J I I I I I I 10 12 14 16 FIGURE c.l Approximate cotton lint market in the United States before and after boll weevil eradication.
|
From page 117... ...
This is the area below the old supply curve SB and above the new more efficient supply curve SA. The dollar total value of this area each year can be approximated by multiplying the estimated saving in insect control cost by historical acres ($44 million for OPM-I and $57 million for OPM-NI-BWE)
|
From page 118... ...
Thus, an overestimate may have been made of the redistribution consequences, namely toward consumers and away from producers. USDA estimates that if $240 million were appropriated and placed in a fund at an interest rate equal to the future inflation rate plus 7.l25 percent that the balance in that fund would pay for all the public costs of efforts needed to successfully eradicate the boll weevil forever.
|
From page 119... ...
The USDA did not report any critical review of the uncertainties in the OPM or BWE program proposals and program costs. Alternative benefit-cost ratios which had equal or larger probability of occurring should have been presented.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.