Analysis of Economic Driving Forces in Crop Protection : A Case Study of Apple Production in the EU

This investigation is aimed at uncovering the factors that influence the decisions of fruit growers to use pesticides as well as attempting to explain the causality of different patterns in the use of pesticides. The research strategy includes description of the crop strategies currently being implemented in selected apple-growing regions of the EU and an explanation of these strategies. First a classification of agricultural systems based on two pesticide use attributes (intensity and innovation) was carried out and four case study regions were selected. In the second part of the investigation, the empirical information was primarily obtained by means of interviews with different stakeholders. The Institutional Analysis and Development Framework was used as a conceptual guide in the qualitative analysis of the empirical data. The results of the institutional analysis explain how the decisions of individual growers are shaped. These results also indicate that the causal links through which the implementation of different patterns in the use of pesticides is explained are related to the inherent conditions of each fruit growing region together with technical limitations in the existing methods of pest control. In this context, structural and technical options for reducing reliance on the use of pesticides could be recognised. Current debate about the use of pesticides is centred on the implementation of the general principles of integrated pest management. However, the results of this study demonstrate that in the production of fruits, more efforts should be put into assessing the effectiveness of crop protection strategies.