Abstract:
The Japanese beetle (Popillia japonica) is classified as a high-priority pest in the European Union and is reported to have caused extensive damage to grapevine leaves in Italy. As there are few studies, which measure the beetle\'s socio-economic impact, we conduct a first descriptive assessment of grapevine farmers\' perception of the beetle\'s impact and assess the pest\'s effect on private management costs using a partial budgeting approach. Our sample includes data from 65 producers and 118 vineyard plots. In terms of farmers\' perception, we find that farmers anticipate increased management costs and believe a further spread of the beetle will lead to at least moderate yield and quality damages for the majority of plots (58-91%). While farmers do not expect to stop grapevine cultivation for the majority of vineyard plots, affected farmers they believe it is likely to very likely for 29% of plots. We also find that affected farmers rate their vines\' resilience higher than unaffected farmers do. Using a partial budgeting approach, we find that a Japanese beetle infestation leads on average to a net income decrease of around €2727 per hectare. This decrease is due to an average increase in labor costs of around €1715. Additionally, an average yield reduction that results in a revenue loss of around €966 and additional control costs of around €47 per infested hectare, further contribute to the net income decrease. Even though the small number of observations does not allow us to make conclusions about the beetle\'s impact on the Italian viticulture sector as a whole, our findings provide first insights and demonstrate the need for environmentally friendly and effective control products that can replace labor-intensive manual control measures, which are currently applied in Japanese beetle infested vineyards.
摘要:
日本甲虫(Popilliajaponica)在欧盟被列为高度优先害虫,据报道在意大利对葡萄藤叶造成了广泛的损害。由于研究很少,衡量甲虫的社会经济影响,我们对葡萄树农民对甲虫影响的看法进行了首次描述性评估,并使用部分预算方法评估了害虫对私人管理成本的影响。我们的样本包括来自65个生产者和118个葡萄园地块的数据。就农民的看法而言,我们发现,农民预计会增加管理成本,并相信甲虫的进一步扩散将导致大多数地块(58-91%)至少中等产量和质量损害。虽然农民并不期望停止在大多数葡萄园种植葡萄,受影响的农民,他们认为这很可能是29%的地块。我们还发现,受影响的农民对葡萄藤的恢复力的评价高于未受影响的农民。使用部分预算方法,我们发现,日本甲虫侵扰导致平均每公顷净收入减少约2727欧元。这一减少是由于劳动力成本平均增加了约1715欧元。此外,平均产量减少导致约966欧元的收入损失和每公顷约47欧元的额外控制成本,进一步导致净收入下降。即使少量的观察结果不允许我们对甲虫对整个意大利葡萄栽培行业的影响做出结论,我们的发现提供了初步见解,并证明了对环保和有效的控制产品的需求,这些产品可以取代劳动密集型的手动控制措施,目前应用于日本甲虫出没的葡萄园。