The Economic Benefit of Crop Protection

It’s sincerely doubtful that the average person realises what life would look like without crop protection products (CPP). Apart from the fact that the produce would look truly butt ugly (and we do buy with our eyes) lets have a look at the economic benefits of CPP:

New Zealand:
The NZ Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) data:

• without CPP NZ would lose $7.5 to $11.4bn; 10% of NZ’s GDP
• would lose 30% of the total national crop value
• would lose the vast majority of all horticulture and vegetable crops – that amounts to 100%
• CPP would lose 1100 workers directly employed and around 5000 workers indirectly

Australia
Not to be out done, Australia also has a lovely diagram:

• AU would lose $20.6bn in crop production nationally
• the loss would amount to 73% of all crops though once again pretty much all horticulture and vegetable crops would be lost
• CPP employs 1725 workers directly and 7500 include upstream impact.

Those who rage against the machine should be careful what they ask for in case they get it. The value of CPP for mankind is almost immeasurable, it’s not ag sprays that are the villains here, it’s how and under what conditions we use them and across ANZ and in many countries it is strongly regulated as it should be. We should also consider the progress that’s been made in the past few decades towards greater ecological balance, progress that is continuing at a rapid pace.