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Romain Crastes dit Sourd & colleagues – To tax or to ban? A discrete choice experiment to elicit public preferences for phasing out glyphosate use in Agriculture

Date

This paper look at citizens’ preferences for reducing the use of glyphosate (a controversial herbicide) by the means of taxation and /or regulation instruments has been accepted for publication in PLoS One.

In 2023, the European Union will vote on the reauthorization of glyphosate use, renewed in 2017 despite concern on impacts on the environment and public health. A ban is supported by several Member States but rejected by most farmers. What are citizens' preferences to phase out glyphosate? To assess whether taxation could be an alternative to a ban, we conducted a discrete choice experiment in five European countries. Our results reveal that the general public is strongly willing to pay for a reduction in glyphosate use. However, while 75.5% of respondents stated to support a ban in the pre-experimental survey, experimental results reveal that in 73.35% of cases, earmarked taxation schemes are preferred when they lead to a strong reduction in glyphosate use for an increase in food price lower than that induced by a ban. When glyphosate reduction is balanced against its costs, a tax may be preferred.

Link to the paper: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283131

Authors: Amalie Bjørnåvold,Maia David,Vincent Mermet-Bijon,Olivier Beaumais,Romain Crastes dit Sourd,Steven Van Passel and Vincent Martinet