Sterile Insect Technique: Principles and Practice in Area-Wide Integrated Pest Management

Abstract

Area-wide integrated pest management is designed for specific purposes, and an economic evaluation should determine its performance against those purposes. The sterile insect technique is used for eradication, suppression, containment and prevention, each of which has different performance measures. Eradication or suppression of insect pest populations using the sterile insect technique (SIT), together with other area-wide control measures, may require significant initial capital investments to achieve long-term returns in subsequent periods. It may also raise questions about the distribution of benefits or the justification of public or private pest control efforts, given long-term uncertainties about the pest challenge and the potential of new control options. A consistent and transparent evaluation is needed to analyse the benefits and costs of such projects and to demonstrate their value, or in some cases to assess appropriate contributions to the costs by the various stakeholders who gain the benefits. Suppression must be compared with expected losses and costs in alternative conditions without SIT application, either from recent experience prior to implementation of the SIT or with similar areas without SIT treatment. Preventive SIT should reduce the frequency of outbreaks compared with experience prior to the application of the SIT or in similar areas elsewhere without SIT use. This chapter outlines the process of benefit/cost analysis, in which itemized future costs and benefits are compared in terms of present values. It also provides a review and examples of the application of benefit/cost analysis to the SIT. A checklist of benefit/cost analysis inputs and some example benefit/cost outputs are also presented.