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High costs of intensive farming
A team of researchers led by Jules Pretty of the University of Essex has estimated the annual external costs of UK agriculture in 1996 at £2,343 million, equivalent to £208 per hectare of arable and permanent pasture land in the UK.
Annual damage to human health from bacterial and viral food
outbreaks in food is thought to be £169 million, and problems involving bovine
spongiform encephalopothy (BSE) cost £607 million. Cleaning the contamination
of drinking water by pesticides costs £120 m per year, and the money spent
would be much higher if the policy goal were the complete removal of all
residues.
Estimates for the external costs of pesticides are almost
certainly considerable under-estimates owing to differing risks per product,
poor understanding of chronic effects, weak monitoring systems, and misdiagnosis
by doctors.
Jules Pretty says it is very difficult to know exactly how
many people are affected by pesticides each year. According to voluntary
reporting to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), some 100-200 incidents occur
annually, of which few are substantiated. However recent HSE research indicates
significant under-reporting. One survey of 2,000 pesticide users found that 5%
reported at least one symptom in the past year, resulting in medical
consultation. A further 10% had been affected (mostly by headaches), but had not
consulted a doctor. As some 105,000 farmers hold pesticide certificates in
Britain, this suggests that at least 5,250 farmers suffer sufficient symptoms to
consult a general practitioner each year, and a further 10,500 adversely
affected to a lesser degree. The annual cost borne by farmers and the health
system was consequently around £1.05 million.
Jules Pretty and colleagues conclude that a more fair and
efficient use of public resources would be achieved if policy sought more
explicitly to internalise the external costs to agriculture. This would imply a
redirection of public aid from polluting activities to sustainable practices,
with subsidies used to encourage those positive externalities under-provided in
the market place. This could be combined with a mix of advisory and
institutional mechanisms, regulatory and legal measures, and economic
instruments to correct negative externalities.
JN Pretty, C Brett, D Gee, RE Hine, CF Mason, JIL Morison, H Raven, MD Rayment, G van der Bijl, An Assessment of the total external costs of UK agriculture, Agricultural Systems, 2000, Vol. 60, pp113-136.