The use of pesticides : a case study of Malta

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the production characteristics of pesticide input. A sample of twenty Maltese farmers, cultivating, six different crops, is used. The diversity of crops poses two problems. First, the form of common underlying relationship to assume, and second, how to achieve conformity in both yield and the pesticide input, as these two variables are characteristically different for each crop. The hypothesis chosen postulates that yield for all six crops varies at the same proportional rate to the pesticide input. In dealing with the second problem, a method is suggested of transforming all the six different yields into a common numeraire while the pesticide input is standardized by dividing the observed levels by the recommended.