Potential welfare impacts from the continued spread of wild pigs

Abstract

Wild pigs are spreading across the United States leaving potentially devastating crop losses in their wake. The majority of US corn, soybean, and wheat (approximately 85%, 79%, and 73%, respectively) and 6% of rice production are at risk in counties that do not currently have wild pigs. This work integrates the probability of a wild pig invasion to predict the welfare effects and price changes due to wild pigs spreading by using four predictive models linked to an equilibrium displacement model. Results show a decrease in total economic well-being of between approximately 54 and 350 million USD per year is possible. However, the outcomes for individual producers are overlooked. Some producers are much worse off, while others are slightly better off. This result demonstrates the importance of local-level analysis, as not all producers are affected the same way, and that distribution should be addressed in future work.