"Balancing Health and Sustainability: Optimizing Investments in Organic vs Conventional agriculture through pesticide reduction" by Luca Bargna

Topic

The trade-offs between organic and conventional farming methods involve their respective effects on food security, health, environmental sustainability, and economic outcomes. We first solve an optimal control problem which concerns the dynamic allocation of investments in organic versus conventional agriculture. We then perform an econometric study using data on pesticide levels in French groundwater and their treatment costs to estimate key model parameters. By comparing the theoretical and empirical results, both economic and environmental implications of shifting investments towards organic farming are uncovered, including a relationship between the social cost of pesticide exposure and its groundwater concentration, the diminishing returns on effort effectiveness, and the efficiency of making early efforts.