Is a cold storage facility worth the cost, as an aid to managing spotted-wing drosophila? Recent work by D. Adeline Yeh (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service), Bingyan Dai, and Miguel I. Gomez (Dyson school of Applied Economics and Managment, Cornell University) gives growers a way to answer that question.
This interactive tool provides information on investing in a cool storage unit to control post-harvest infestation from Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD) for blueberry production in North Carolina. The economic outcomes presented in this tool are calculated based on a typical rabbiteye, or late season, blueberry farm in North Carolina. The analysis considers the price reduction of fresh blueberries due to the delay to market from storing in the cool storage.
In this tool, users can select/change input values, including (1) expected market price of blueberry; (2) rejection rate of blueberry (if infested by SWD); (3) farm-specific production characteristics; and (4) information about investing in a cool storage facility. Based on user’s input values, this tool shows the estimated economic outcomes with and without investing in a post-harvest cooling facility to control SWD infestation. The economic analyses include revenue estimation, production costs estimation, annual profits to generate cash flow, and the breakeven year if investing the cooling facility.
This tool is developed based on the following article: Kraft, Laura J et al. “Determining the Effect of Postharvest Cold Storage Treatment on the Survival of Immature Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae) in Small Fruits.” Journal of economic entomology vol. 113,5 (2020): 2427-2435. doi:10.1093/jee/toaa185
Clicking the link below will download the Excel spreadsheet tool to your computer:
SWD Cold storage investment with interactive tool_NC
If you have any questions, or want to provide feedback on this tool, please contact Bingyan Dai (bd393@cornell.edu) and/or D. Adeline Yeh (adeline.yeh@usda.gov) and/or Miguel Gomez (mig7@cornell.edu).
