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Devouring profit - International Coffee Organization

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on the other hand we can also estimate a cost function for cultural control, which<br />

would be:<br />

Where:<br />

Y= Cost of cultural control in US$.<br />

Loss<br />

(USD/Manzana)<br />

120<br />

100<br />

80<br />

60<br />

40<br />

20<br />

0<br />

Y =<br />

17.7<br />

Potential Economic<br />

Losses<br />

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16<br />

Infestation Level (%)<br />

Cultural<br />

Control Cost<br />

Figure 11. Losses due to CBB, with cultural control costs.<br />

If we make both equations equal, we can obtain the infestation level (X), at which<br />

losses and costs are the same. In this case it is 2.7%, which is a low infestation level.<br />

So if the farmer allows CBB to rise above this threshold, losses will be higher than the<br />

cultural control cost, and so this control starts to become <strong>profit</strong>able. However we also<br />

have to consider the dynamics of CBB populations because the ideal control moment<br />

may be long before harvest and even a small population could cause economic damage<br />

some months in the future. In addition, variations in coffee price and/or productivity<br />

can change the threshold percentage. For instance, if the coffee price shifts to<br />

US$65 per quintal, the new threshold will be 1.7%. So CBB management is very<br />

sensitive to change in prices and productivity. The key point here is that in CBB<br />

management the coffee farmers should be aware of the infestation level in order to<br />

take better decisions because economic losses due to this pest can be large. Even so,<br />

interpreting what they have measured is not always easy and this inevitably makes this<br />

sort of technique more difficult to promote.<br />

57

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