Environmental and social impacts of a rising demand for pesticide-free food

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Pesticide-free agriculture has many advantages over conventional agriculture; it for example supports a higher biodiversity and soil organic carbon and nitrogen content on fields. Yields, however, are usually lower in such systems, and as a consequence more land is needed to produce the same amount of food, or production has to be intensified on conventional agricultural areas. Since the global market for organic food is expected to grow further in future from its currently 50 billion Euros, the question arises how this development may impact global land use, food prices and environmental quality. It is also unclear how the increasing demand for pesticide-free products in the main consumer regions EU and US will impact other regions, especially developing countries, and what the nature and magnitude of the leakage effects are likely to be. To answer these questions, in this project I will: i) further refine a recently developed novel crop model capable of simulating large-scale pest and pesticide dynamics in agricultural systems; ii) apply the model to simulate crop yields and pesticide use intensities in different cropping systems around the world; iii) execute a global agricultural sector model to determine land use, commodity prices and changes in welfare under different demand assumptions for pesticide-free commodities in different regions of the world. With this set-up, it will become possible for the first time to accurately compare the impact of the increasing demand for pesticide-free food across different regions of the world, detect possible leakage effects from one region to another, and identify areas in need of policy improvements.