Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns today announced that universities in seven states will receive $1.1 million in cooperative agreements to conduct research on measures for combating harmful pests and diseases and to determine the economic implications of preventing, controlling, or eradicating invasive pests.

"The protection of our environment and our agricultural sector from invasive pests is a priority," said Johanns. "The research projects we've selected will help develop strategies for enhancing public and private sector cooperation in preventing or controlling pests and disease."

The agreements announced today will provide funding to research institutions in Arizona, California, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, New Mexico, and Wyoming. The issues these projects will examine are:

• ranchers' incentives to prevent and manage invasive weeds under different economic conditions, and the potential effect of public programs;
• the benefits, costs, and market impacts of animal identification and traceability programs that can help USDA respond to animal disease outbreaks;
• the benefits and costs of policy options to manage potential risks associated with commercial imports of non-native nursery stock;
• the economic effects of different inspection regimes for imported products to improve the design of prevention and enforcement tools;
• the economic effects of phytosanitary barriers to U.S. seed exports;
• the use of financial instruments known as insect derivatives as a market-based approach for farmers to mitigate the economic risk of invasive species damage;
• the potential for some rules and policies to encourage foreign producers of exports to voluntarily comply with U.S. import standards for invasive species.

The complete list of awards follows. These research projects are competitively awarded by the Program of Research on the Economics of Invasive Species Management (PREISM), administered by USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS). PREISM studies will provide analytically based principles, guidelines, and criteria for invasive species policy and program decision making, as well as the economic information, modeling systems, or other tools that support the decision making. More information about these projects is on the web at: www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/invasivespecies.

FY 2005 PREISM Competitive Grants and Cooperative Agreements

University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, $207,000 - The project will develop an integrated economic and ecological framework for evaluating different policies to manage the possible accidental introduction of invasive plants resulting from commercial imports of ornamental nursery stock. The analysis will examine the benefits and costs of different policy options, including industry regulation, taxes, and import bans, to manage the potential risks associated with U.S. - Canadian trade in exotic plant species.

University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, $200,000 - Researchers will examine ranchers' incentives for invasive species prevention and management under different economic conditions. The project will evaluate the potential effectiveness of public strategies for preventing and managing Russian knapweed and yellow starthistle as they affect ranching in New Mexico.

University of Maryland, College Park, MD, $157,000 - This project will examine rules and policies that can encourage exporting firms to voluntarily meet import standards for invasive species. The research will investigate the associated economic costs of trade sanctions and the economic factors that influence their effectiveness in securing cooperation between importing and exporting countries. The results will improve understanding of circumstances that would require domestic trade sanctions to induce foreign governments to regulate exports.

Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, $151,800 - This project will evaluate the benefits, costs, and market impact of animal identification and traceback programs for the U.S. beef sector in the event of introduction of a foreign animal disease. The analysis will integrate economic and disease spread models to determine the economic value of different types of animal identification/traceback systems to manage an outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease in the High Plains region.

Iowa State University, Ames, IA, $136,000 - A multidisciplinary team of researchers will evaluate the benefits of removing phytosanitary barriers to U.S. exports of planting seeds. The team will identify foreign regulations that do not meet scientific standards, determine the cost associated with the tests, and estimate the economic impact of removing these barriers to U.S. seed exports.

University of California, Berkeley, CA, $132,000 - This project will evaluate the economic effects of different inspection protocols for imported products. The goal is to improve the allocation of scarce inspection resources as well as the effectiveness of current enforcement tools for the management of invasive species. Case studies will examine how different protocols affect export firms' incentives to control or eliminate pests versus their incentives to avoid inspections or hide problems.

Arizona State University, Mesa, AZ, $104,000 - The investigators will analyze farmers' use of financial instruments known as insect derivatives, possibly in conjunction with crop insurance or other public programs, to mitigate the economic risk of insect damage. A case study will evaluate the use of insect derivatives to manage the risk of whitefly infestation in cotton.