Evaluating alternative policies to reduce pesticide groundwater pollution in Dutch arable farming

This article develops a dynamic optimal control modelof farmers' production decisions and applies it to panel data from Dutch arable farms to assess the effectiveness of different policy interventions in reducing pesticide groundwater pollution. Three different policy measures are examined in turn: namely, a flat tax on pesticides; a groundwater contamination tax; and a quantity restriction on pesticide use. The examined policies are compared against both quantitative and qualitative criteria drawn from the pesticide policy literature. Results show that the groundwater contamination tax is the most preferred policy for reducing pesticide groundwater pollution. A way to apply such a tax is proposed and discussed.

本文构建了农户生产决策的动态最优控制模型，并将其应用于荷兰耕地农场的面板数据（panel data），以评估不同政策干预措施在降低农药地下水污染方面的有效性。本文依次考察了三种不同的政策工具：分别为农药统一税、地下水污染税以及农药使用数量限制。所考察的各项政策将参照农药政策研究领域中的定量与定性标准展开对比分析。研究结果表明，在降低农药地下水污染方面，地下水污染税是最优的政策选择。本文还提出并讨论了该类税收的具体实施路径。