This is a great piece—and a worthy winner of the prize.
I have some concerns about tractability. I can easily see how lobbying in LMICs could lead to regulation banning pesticides etc. This would be cheap to try, and seems obviously worth investigating and researching to develop a proposal.
But banning XYZ this will not necessarily solve the problem—because we know that the state’s capacity to enforce regulation is weak in many of these contexts. There already exist laws on other forms of pollution which are not enforced in practice.
My guess would be that if there are pesticides etc. that can be replaced by less damaging alternatives, with little to no loss in yield/performance—then this could be easily tractable. But that it isn’t going to be very tractable if it requires small-scale farmers to make financial sacrifices.
I broadly agree—I think for any realistic analysis of this area, the question isn’t whether regulation completely solves the problem, but what relative reduction is achievable. I tried to model this in the BOTEC by being fairly conservative about the decrease in exposure:
However, these inputs are also accounting for the probability of success of passing regulation at all—so it’s reasonable to think these estimates should be even more conservative.
This is action-guiding too—selecting which countries to work in would need to consider the domestic regulatory environment and what the supply chain looks like in that context.
And I think your point is supported by my impression of the experiences of the Lead Exposure Elimination Project. Their impact in Malawi, their first target country, wasn’t through passing a law, but in getting pre-existing standards enforced and monitored. If any org was pursue organophosphates as a cause area in the future, I think assisting monitoring and compliance would be an important component.
This is a great piece—and a worthy winner of the prize.
I have some concerns about tractability. I can easily see how lobbying in LMICs could lead to regulation banning pesticides etc. This would be cheap to try, and seems obviously worth investigating and researching to develop a proposal.
But banning XYZ this will not necessarily solve the problem—because we know that the state’s capacity to enforce regulation is weak in many of these contexts. There already exist laws on other forms of pollution which are not enforced in practice.
Against that—consider case of Bangladesh and banning lead in petrol. Basically an overnight success. http://web.worldbank.org/archive/website00811/WEB/OTHER/E8864F3B.HTM?OpenDocument#:~:text=According to Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation,is now free of lead.
My guess would be that if there are pesticides etc. that can be replaced by less damaging alternatives, with little to no loss in yield/performance—then this could be easily tractable. But that it isn’t going to be very tractable if it requires small-scale farmers to make financial sacrifices.
I broadly agree—I think for any realistic analysis of this area, the question isn’t whether regulation completely solves the problem, but what relative reduction is achievable. I tried to model this in the BOTEC by being fairly conservative about the decrease in exposure:
However, these inputs are also accounting for the probability of success of passing regulation at all—so it’s reasonable to think these estimates should be even more conservative.
This is action-guiding too—selecting which countries to work in would need to consider the domestic regulatory environment and what the supply chain looks like in that context.
And I think your point is supported by my impression of the experiences of the Lead Exposure Elimination Project. Their impact in Malawi, their first target country, wasn’t through passing a law, but in getting pre-existing standards enforced and monitored. If any org was pursue organophosphates as a cause area in the future, I think assisting monitoring and compliance would be an important component.