Introduction
The development achieved by science and technology on a global scale, the increasingly complex new discoveries, technological modernity and the gradual incidence of man on the environment may suppose that an almost total dominance over nature has been achieved, however, When climatic catastrophes occur that change the cause of rivers, produce landslides, or devastate crops and agricultural plantations in which a large sum of resources has been invested over a long period of time, it is understood that the incidence of man and Its control over nature and natural origin phenomena is only negligible and there is still a long way to go to have nature at hand, this purpose, as science has also shown,it will continue to be a difficult chimera for researchers and scientists.
The affectation of natural disasters consequently has a direct incidence on the life of people, animals and plants that coexist in a given region and also generate significant difficulties in the economic order; organisms and entities in the world subsidize their productions, manage insurance, etc., to mitigate the negative effects of said risks.
The economic effects on agricultural products are sometimes not evaluated due to ignorance. It is decisive to know the degree of incidence of the risks, because man can prepare himself more and more proactively to assume them. This work offers an economic model for estimating agricultural losses under risky conditions.
The abstract logic with its analysis, synthesis, induction and deduction procedures, the Monographic its complex analysis procedures, comparisons and detailing of interrelations through indicators and the documentary analysis, which included the search for literature and the study of normative documents on the subject. The research techniques used were the impact evaluation matrix and the experts' criteria. The survey was also used, by applying a direct structured questionnaire, with open-ended questions (See Annex No. 1) in order to investigate the incidence of pest risks in some of the most significant crops in Havana province.The Windows electronic Excel tabulator was used to develop the model. The proposed model (See Annex No. 2) is applicable to any type of company and agricultural unit in particular and can be used directly by producers, researchers or specialists in the field.
Development
1.1 The risks. Conceptualization. Types of risks.
As stated in a Spanish edition of the book "Earth and Environmental Sciences" "In the last twenty years, natural disasters have killed three million people worldwide, causing damage to around another 800 million. Economic losses caused by floods, droughts, earthquakes, volcanoes, forest fires, etc. they are huge". Risk is part of life, so it is necessary to learn to live together and mitigate its effects.
Globally, risk is determined from the expression Vulnerability Hazard.
Danger is known in English as "hazard" and in French as "alea", it refers to the probability that a certain natural phenomenon, of a certain extension, intensity and duration, with negative consequences, will occur.
Vulnerability refers to the impact of the phenomenon on society, and it is precisely the increase in vulnerability that has led to a greater increase in natural risks.
For the calculation of risk, the introduction of the population's response to risk has been proposed; considering that the better this response, the lower the risk. That is why, in some regions, this response is evaluated using a numerical criterion and its value is subsequently subtracted from the product of vulnerability danger, thus, the expression previously described for the calculation of risk is adjusted as follows:
Conceptually different types of risks are managed; Those related to the study of this work are associated and implicit in the concept of natural risk. The expression "natural risk" is used in contrast to technological risk, but does not imply that the risk is the consequence of an exclusively natural phenomenon or that man does not influence it.
The damages produced by natural risks can be: direct and indirect. Direct (people, goods, agriculture and livestock, infrastructure, cultural heritage, etc.) and indirect (interruption of works and production systems, decreased tourism, etc.).
The dangerousness or threat of a risk results from the product of two factors:
- Probability. The probability can be very low, close to 0, or very high, close to 1 (a probability 1 means that the event will occur safely). Magnitude. The magnitude of the damage derived from a phenomenon or action can be immense or negligible.
According to the literature on the subject, natural hazards can be classified into different types: meteorological / climatic, geophysical, biological, anthropogenic and mixed.
The risks in which the danger is exclusively linked to the meteorological or climatic conditions are: wind storms, cold or heat waves, hail, extraordinary snowfalls, electrical storms.
In a second place are those involving other factors, whether natural or anthropic: avalanches (geology-meteorology), floods (meteorology-hydrology), landslides linked, in some cases, to rain (meteorology-geology), forest fires, droughts.
Finally, there are natural risks of non-atmospheric origin but which produce a significant impact on the atmosphere, they are: volcanic eruptions, strong atmospheric pollution (not natural),…, these would be on the border between technological and natural risks.
Among the risks of geophysical origin we can highlight: earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, avalanches, those related to coastal problems, essentially coast subsidence and erosion. Some of these are related to triggers of meteorological or anthropogenic origin.
Finally, among the risks of biological origin, the following deserve to be highlighted for their influence in the agricultural sector:
- Pests Pests Epidemics or diseases.
One way to act against natural risks is to work for risk prevention, prediction and management, and achieve the necessary education for people, all of which is of paramount importance to minimize the negative influence of adverse factors.
1.1.1 The risks and their incidence in agriculture.
Agriculture is a vital sector in any economy, being the fundamental source of food for man gives him this primacy among the other sectors that operate in the economy of a country. A good part of the economies in the world subsidize the agricultural sector, or some of its productions; The characteristics of production in this type of sector classify it among the most affected by the effects of the climate and the environment, so that in the order of the economy, the agricultural sector is an unstable sector, sometimes subject to unpredictable expenses that they become more acute in times of contingencies, risks are a daily part of the development of the sector and the products that it offers.
Risk has always been part of agriculture. Biological risks have a direct influence on the products offered by the agricultural sector, the incidence of pests, epidemics or diseases on crops, generates the loss of a significant amount of products that could be offered to the population and solve food safety problems that afflict multiple populations in the world.
The unsatisfied demand for items that are marketed at prices unattainable for the population with low and medium incomes especially constitutes a latent problem that governments and productive entities of the agricultural sector must solve. Managing risks helps mitigate these shortcomings, it also means cultivating with confidence in a world of constant change. Managing risk is the ability of farmers to cope with the risks of new and attractive growing opportunities.
In addition to the well-known expression for calculating risk, (which can be found in section 1.1), there is another tool that evaluates the intensity of the impact effect and which is usually used for the strategic analysis of organizations. This tool, known As an impact evaluation matrix, it states the following:
Determine the intensity of the impact effect of each form of manifestation of the key factors evaluated on the organization, for which the following formula IEI =
Where IEI (intensity of the impact effect), FM (form of manifestation of the external factor) I (intensity of the impact) and C (responsiveness or control over the impact). The hypothesis is defined «the greater the control over the impact, the lower the intensity of the impact effect«.
(http://www.monografias.com/trabajos13/tacope/tacope.shtml#anatáctico y operativo)
This tool allows to measure the response capacity to a certain impact and constitutes a useful tool to also study in agriculture the incidence of pests as a risk factor, this matrix will be used as an essential tool in the model proposed below.
1.2 The estimation of agricultural losses in risky conditions.
The economy constitutes a science with a high impact on the satisfaction of social needs, when the average population, unaware of the peculiarities of this science, acquires a certain product, its only and essential link with this science is materialized through price, without However, behind each product there are a set of factors associated with its production and marketing that are impossible to ignore: the necessary raw material, the labor force, capital goods, financing, etc. Other factors associated with the impact of risks on the finished product also affect the conformation of costs and constitute a factor to consider in determining prices, therefore, they are, in fact,essential elements in the estimation of the economic indices that guarantee the acquisition of the products by the final consumers and their full satisfaction with the offer received.
It is difficult to predict how much a certain factor will affect the agricultural sector, as already described, there are multiple factors; Agriculture is an open sector, which works with living organisms, with biological and natural characteristics that must be considered, which makes it highly vulnerable to risks. The risks impact the costs of the products and therefore the rest of the economic factors that have to do with the production and its commercialization.
Among the biological risks, pests and diseases constitute, in the case of Cuba, one of the factors with the highest incidence in the development of agricultural crops and plantations. The drop in yields due to damages of this type and the large losses in terms of volume and value of the productions estimated for a given period are well known. Even the economic blockade and the biological warfare that has been imposed on Cuba to stop the development of agriculture show signs of the effects that, due to the entry of pests and diseases into the country, have had a negative impact on the Cuban agricultural supply. Rust from sugar cane, Blue mold from tobacco, Swine fever, Thrips Palmi in vegetables and tubers, etc.,they are sad evidences of the affectations by plagues and diseases that have depressed the agricultural production.
The proposed model evaluates the level of risk that each crop faces from the attack of a certain pest according to the result of the calculation of the Intensity of the impact effect (IEI) and also estimates the economic losses associated with the affectation that This pest produces the yield of the crop in question. For the example given in Annex No. 2, the pests that have a higher incidence on the yield of some important economic crops in the province of Havana and the country were taken into consideration.
The model starts from the conceptual approach of the term Risks, widely used to measure the effect of certain types of factors already described in the previous sections. We also worked with the elements proposed by the Impact Assessment Matrix, a useful tool for the strategic analysis of organizations and that allowed us to define the following expression to determine the Intensity of the Impact Effect of risk:
The conditions assumed for the analysis are as follows:
Danger:
Up to 50% probability of occurrence of the affectation (Low): 0 points
More than 50% probability of occurrence of involvement (High): 1 point
To assess the severity or force of the impact, it is considered as:
- High, Strong or Critical: 3 points Medium or Moderate: 2 points Low, Weak or irrelevant: 1 point
To assess the producer's response capacity to the impact of the risk, the following is considered:
- Without control: 1 point With moderate control: 2 points With high control: 3 points
The further the result of the indicator Impact Effect Intensity (IEI) moves away from 0, the greater the incidence of the impact effect exists and, consequently, the greater the level of risk of the aforementioned crop being affected by the crop in question, which indicates that the producer must be better prepared to face the risk in terms of economic resources.
The calculation of the economic losses associated with the affectation was determined as:
Finally, based on the levels of planted area (or estimated to be planted), the income not received by said concept is calculated or estimated, that is:
It is important to point out that in the model presented, the analysis is referring to those pests with a high probability of occurrence for the selected crops (Danger 1) that generally arise whenever the crop is established in an area, so its level of appearance is subject only to the condition that it is sown or not. The example offers the calculation so that the level of affectation for a supposed surface of 100 planted hectares is verified. It is necessary to highlight that the model can be modified by anyone who uses it based on the conditions that it considers in the analysis and that there are multiple pests that emerge during the entire biological-vegetative cycle of plants to which it can be calculated to be similar way its affectation.
The data that has been used for the simulation has been taken from the criteria of specialists and researchers on the subject and conservatively reflects the estimated incidence of the yield of the crops being studied, however, in our country there is evidence of much higher affectations. which are taken as a reference for crops in certain areas, for example, the Thrips Palmi, in the 1997-1998 season, depressed the performance of some crops such as potatoes, beans, cucumbers, and squash, with levels of affectation that reached in certain territories up to 80%.
Conclusions and recommendations
Once the investigation was carried out, the following conclusions were reached:
- The work conceptually addresses the main types of natural hazards that exist, as recorded in the literature, and places special emphasis on biological hazards, to which agricultural crops are more regularly subjected. The proposed model:
- It allows to determine the incomes left to receive associated to the yield of a crop by the incidence of a certain pest and to measure the intensity of the effect of the impact of said pest on the crop in question. It allows projecting and evaluating the economic risk to which a crop is subjected due to the incidence of a particular pest. It is applicable to any agricultural entity and serves as an instrument for producers, researchers and specialists in the field to study the effect of pests on crops. It is simple to use and requires information that can be obtained through expert judgment or through documentary analysis.
Taking into consideration the above it is recommended:
- Refine the model's offers and include in it the analysis of the effects that the fall in the marketing price of the products may cause due to the influence of pests on the deterioration of the quality of the final product. Continue testing the model based on its systematic evaluation by producers, researchers and specialists on the subject.
Bibliography
• National Statistics Office. 2006. Statistical Yearbook of Cuba.
• Ministry of Agriculture. Quality specifications for the purchase and sale of agricultural products destined for commercialization for consumption. Agrinfor 2005
• Collective of Authors. Pests, disease and their control. Editorial Pueblo y Educación, 1989
• Earth and environmental sciences. Natural risks.
• Natural risks.
• Environmental risk.
• The agricultural risk estimation system.
• The risks.
• Biological risks: the next generation?
• http://www.monografias.com/trabajos13/tacope/tacope.shtml#anatáctico y operativo.
• Morea Lucas, 1997. Evaluation matrix. From strategy to strategic management. An approach to the integration of the strategic levels "online". Available at: http://www.monografias.com/trabajos13/tacope/tacope.shtml#anatáctico y consumo. accessed: October 12, 2004.
Annex No. 1.-
Questionnaire applied to researchers and specialists.
Dear colleague: We are conducting research related to pests that affect the main crops in our province, we need to collaborate with your opinion based on the work experience that we know you have. Thank you, 1. In your opinion, which are the most representative crops of agriculture in the province of Havana?
____________________, _____________________, ________________
2. Which pest attacks more frequently and which ones affect the yield of these main crops the most?
|
Culture |
Plague that attacks more frequently |
Pest that attacks with the greatest impact on crop yield |
3. Do you know if there are any statistics that allow quantifying the effect of the losses that these pests cause to crops?
|
culture |
Plague |
Estimated percent loss to crop yield |
4. Do you know if the marketing prices of the products are affected based on the quality level that has been affected by the negative incidence of the pest?
5. Do you have any suggestions to determine the economic effect of these pests on the crops studied.
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