Nonnative Pest Prevention and Control

The ability to efficiently produce and market US agricultural goods is contingent on keeping them relatively free of harmful weeds, insects, microbes, and diseases. Despite public and private investments of up to $15.5 billion a year in prevention and control, US agricultural producers still incur at least $98.7 billion in losses and damages to nonnative pests each year. Policies and interventions that prevent or control nonnative pests play a crucial role in safeguarding US agriculture. This chapter surveys a wide array of activities at international, federal, and public–private partnership levels, such as: sanitary and phytosanitary standards, agricultural inspections, off-shore preclearance programs, fees and fines for contaminated shipments, surveillance using sentinel plots, compensation for destroyed crops or livestock, certification based on biosecurity measures, animal disease traceability, disease insurance, compartmentalization, commodity-based trade, and regionalization. Each intervention is assessed according to four criteria: technical, allocative, and dynamic market efficiency; and nonmarket beneficial outcomes. Interventions commonly affect technical, allocative, and dynamic market efficiency, but few affect nonmarket beneficial outcomes. Efforts to address all four criteria are complicated, however, because some interventions improve one criterion at the expense of others.