Travisi und Nijkamp - 2008 - Valuing environmental and health risk in agricultu

ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS 67 (2008) 598– 607
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questionnaire, complete it, and then drop it off after shopping.
Overall, 484 questionnaires were distributed, 302 of which
were returned in a completed form. The return rate was about
62%.
The questionnaire consisted of three sections. The first
section introduced the subject of the environmental externalities
of pesticide use in modern agriculture, by using a costbenefit
perspective, which emphasized existing trade-offs
between the positive and negative externalities associated
with agricultural production based on the use of synthetic
inputs. First, we referred to pesticide risks in general, and
asked respondents their opinion on the current environmental
situation and the detrimental effects of modern agriculture.
Other questions included: i) How serious are
environmental problems compared with other problems in
our society, and which of these problems deserve higher
public investment?; ii) How serious are pesticide problems
compared with other environmental problems, and which of
these problems should be the priority for public investment?;
iii) Which type of pesticide impact is more severe, and why?;
iv) Had the respondents ever personally experienced any of
these impacts?; and v) How much were they informed about
pesticide impacts? We then focused on some specific dimensions
of pesticide risk. The questionnaire described the actual
current Italian situation concerning pesticides, providing
information on, and graphical aids to indicate, both their
benefits and risks, and giving the reasons for these positive
and negative effects. In particular, the questionnaire focused
on three environmental dimensions currently affected by
pesticides: farmland biodiversity; soil and groundwater contamination;
and the health effects on an exposed population.
To facilitate the questionnaire's comprehension, respondents
were provided with a card summarizing all these
information in a simple graphical manner. This card was
available to the respondent during the whole CE exercise. The
second section of the questionnaire contained the CE exercise.
Preliminary to the CE questions, we informed the respondents
that a reduction of pesticide risk exposure is possible by
implementing some pesticide management policies, and that
the Italian government was about to do this. Policy options
consisted of a change in agricultural production practices that
are designed to reduce the rate of pesticide application on
fields, without any change in the products' quality. However,
this would increase production costs, leading to an increase in
retail costs too. We clearly explained to the respondents that
the implementation of the pesticide risk reduction policies
would be costly to the agricultural sector, and that some of the
increased production costs would fall on consumers, through
an increase in retail prices. We explained how a reduction in
risks would be possible; what range of reduction would be
achievable; who would provide this reduction; how it would be
provided; and the economic effect of such risk reduction to the
respondent. Respondents were therefore asked to view the
various externalities of pesticide use due to conventional
agricultural practices as food attributes to be taken into
account in daily purchase decisions. The third section of the
questionnaire gathered additional information in order to
obtain a clearer image of the respondents' profile, attitudes,
socio-economic conditions, and exposure to pesticides. Questionnaire
debriefs closed the survey, in order to explore
whether the respondents had a reasonably good comprehension
of the survey material and choice tasks.
4.2. CE questions
Following the above explanation, the respondents focused on
the CE questions. These questions were formalized by two
elements: i) a decrease in pesticide impacts (provided by a
change in agricultural practices); ii) and an increase in the
foodstuff shopping expenditure. Relevant risk attributes were
selected with the assistance of a team of Italian ecotoxicologists
specialized in pesticide risk assessment. We
therefore identified the main environmental and health
dimensions affected by pesticides in Italy, selected indicator
variables that best describe each environmental effect, and set
a realistic range of variation that is reachable thanks to the
proposed change of agricultural practices. All indicators were
selected to describe, as accurately as possible, the main areas
of well-documented environmental damage in Italy. Attributes
and attributes' levels were also tested during focus
groups to allow the fine-tuning of this part of the survey
instrument. We focused on the following dimension of
damage due to pesticide use: farmland bird biodiversity, soil
and groundwater pesticide contamination, and threats to
human health.
To avoid misinterpretation of attributes' levels, we formalized
such pesticide effects in terms of damage, rather that in terms of
risk (i.e. probability of occurrence). The attributes and the
attributes' levels are described in Table 1. Status quo levels are
national-specific, and refer to the current Italian situation. The
impact on biodiversity was formalized in terms of the number of
endangered farmland bird species. Respondents were provided
Table 1 – List of the attributes used in the CE value application and corresponding percentage values
Attributes Current level Level-1 Level-2 Level-3
Expenditure for foodstuff
[€/household per month]
Biodiversity [no. endangered
farmland bird species]
Soil and groundwater
[% contaminated agricultural land]
Human health
[no. cases illness per year]
Current expenditure E (⁎) E+50€ [increase by 10%] E+100€ [increase by 20%] E+200€ [increase by 40%]
15 9 [decrease by 40%] 6 [decrease by 60%] 3 [decrease by 80%]
65 45 [decrease by 30%] 25 [decrease by 60%] 15 [decrease by 80%]
250 150 [decrease by 40%] 100 [decrease by 60%] 50 [decrease by 80%]
Note: (⁎) As indicated by each respondent.