Economic

Benefits

Economic studies have documented the economic impacts of diseases caused by graft-transmissible pathogens of grapes, identified profit-maximizing disease management solutions in the field, and assessed returns to public investment of two NCPN centers.

Estimated costs of grapevine red blotch disease were estimated to be as high as $1,100/acre/year in 2015 dollars (or about $68,548 per hectare over a 25 year lifespan of a vineyard) in Napa County, California using a scenario of high initial infection and high quality penalty. If disease prevalence is low to moderate (below 30%), roguing symptomatic vines and replanting with clean vines should minimize losses. A full vineyard replacement should be pursued if disease incidence is higher (generally above 30%) (Ricketts et al., 2017).

Estimated costs of leafroll disease with no disease control ranged from $29,902 to $226,405 per hectare over a 25-year lifespan of a vineyard in California. If disease prevalence is between 5 and 10%, roguing symptomatic vines, replanting with certified vines, and controlling for mealybugs can minimize losses to leafroll (Ricketts et al., 2015).

Grower costs and benefits of the GLRaV-3 testing, therapy, and distribution program at FPS were in excess of $20 million/yr for the North Coast of California and substantially outweighed the costs (Fuller et al., 2019). The program has a benefit of $70 million for the rest of the grape growing regions in California for a statewide benefit of $90 million annually (Cheon et al., 2020).
The NCPN Economic Studies Working Group produced a comprehensive literature review of economic impacts of diseases of specialty crops in the NCPN (Yeh et al., 2019)
Economic Studies Reinforce Efforts to Safeguard Specialty Crops in the United States by Fuchs et al., 2021 provides a comprehensive review of economic studies relevant to NCPN.
NCPN Factsheet: The Value of Using Clean Plants: A Review of Economic Studies