The provision of better risk management tools for farmers and the reduction of adverse effects from pesticide use are both important goals of agricultural policy – but are potentially interrelated and might contradict each other. In this article, we analyze the relation of crop insurance and pesticide use in European agriculture using the examples of France and Switzerland. In our conceptual and empirical framework, we account for the complex structure of insurance uptake, land use and pesticide use decisions of farmers, potentially leading to insurance - pesticide use interactions both at the intensive and extensive margin. Our empirical results indicate a positive and economically significant relation between crop insurance and pesticide use in European agriculture. The findings suggest that without crop insurance, pesticide expenditures would be 6 to 11% lower. However, the importance of extensive and intensive margin relations differs between France and Switzerland and is related to country specific characteristics. We conclude that new risk management instruments should account for potential effects on input use.

中文翻译：

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欧洲农业中的作物保险和农药使用

为农民提供更好的风险管理工具和减少农药使用带来的不利影响都是农业政策的重要目标——但它们可能相互关联，也可能相互矛盾。在本文中，我们以法国和瑞士为例，分析了欧洲农业中农作物保险与农药使用的关系。在我们的概念和实证框架中，我们考虑了农民的保险、土地使用和农药使用决策的复杂结构，这可能导致保险 - 农药在集约和粗放边际的使用相互作用。我们的实证结果表明，欧洲农业中作物保险与农药使用之间存在积极且经济上显着的关系。研究结果表明，如果没有农作物保险，农药支出将减少 6% 至 11%。然而，广泛和密集边际关系的重要性在法国和瑞士之间有所不同，并与国家的具体特征有关。我们得出结论，新的风险管理工具应该考虑对投入使用的潜在影响。