New report shows big ROI for National Clean Plant Network

Photo: Howard F. Schwartz, Colorado State University, Bugwood.org

From ANLA Knowledge Center:

The National Clean Plant Network is a Farm Bill funded program which in 2008 provided $20 million over the course of four years towards supporting nineteen centers in fifteen states to “clean” berry, hops, grape and fruit tree crops of any associated pest and pathogens. While there has been a general appreciation of the value in the federal investment, the first economic study evaluating the actual return on investment (ROI) was presented at the Nov. 18 Foundation Plant Services (FPS) annual meeting at University of California at Davis.

This particular study focused on wine grape growers in Sonoma and Napa counties in California. The findings, presented by Dr. Kate Fuller of the UC Davis Agricultural and Resource Economics Department, suggest that growers who plant certified wine grape vines would benefit $0.30-0.47 per vine or $401-$616 per acre annually in comparison to estimated losses due to grapevine leafroll-3 virus infected vines. If all growers in the region planted certified wine grape vines the benefit would translate to between $40.4 and $61.8 million per year those two counties – a return of six to ten times the investment.

The report, entitled, "The Benefits from Certified Virus-Free Nursery Stock: A Case Study of Grapevine Leafroll-3 in the North Coast Region of California" is available on UC Davis' website the Robert Mondavi Institute Center for Wine Economics.

To read the complete report by the authors Drs. Fuller, Alston and Golino, click here.