TAM To Think: Understanding the True Cost of Invasive Pests (The Red Palm Weevil edition)
- Sudip Sinha
- Jan 20
- 5 min read
Updated: Jan 21
In our journey of building AgriSciense and after several conversations with old colleagues, partners, and investors, often I found myself pondering. In the best of times, there’s something peculiarly challenging about explaining agricultural market challenges to the general audience, unaware of the difference between glyphosate and monocrotophos, without coming off as patronizing. But with our own limited knowledge in February 2024, it was particularly discomfiting to explain the challenge of invasive pests to an informed audience. It felt rather like describing the intricate mechanics of cricket to Americans—you know the potential is immense, but getting there requires some creative storytelling—when your own exposure is limited to playing cricket on Playstation4.
Things change, and change they did as we spent the year building AgriSciense. We take our readers through the journey as we explore the true cost of invasive pests to farmers and agriculture markets.
Satyanweshi: The Detective Work Begins
The challenge with agricultural pest damage is that it’s rather like an iceberg—what you see in official reports is merely the tip of a much larger problem. The academic literature has been shouting into the void about this for years, but quantifying the actual impact requires some clever detective work.
Our exploration into the invasive pests’ challenge began with a fantastic meta-study, “The Magnitude, Diversity, and Distribution of the Economic Costs of Invasive Terrestrial Invertebrates Worldwide.” The authors point out that while annual costs associated with pests had risen to US$165 billion in 2020, only 14% of the monetary costs were directly observed, with a vast gulf between total cost incurred ($5,058 billion) and highly reliable costs. This highlighted a couple of logical conclusions: first, invasive pests remain a niche area even among academia, and second, the costs of invasive pests were rapidly rising across regions and crops.
Then we discovered date palms.
I’ve spent the better part of my career analyzing agricultural markets, but nothing quite prepared me for the fascinating world of date palms. It’s a sector where the numbers are as staggering as they are underreported, and where a tiny pest called the Red Palm Weevil (RPW) has been hosting the equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet at farmers’ expense.
The Red Palm We’evil’: Our Date Palm Farmer Has a Problem
AgriSciense's field trials in India presented a fascinating glimpse into the practical challenges and opportunities in this space. India, with its rapidly growing date palm sector (currently around 55,000 acres under cultivation, growing at 8%), presents a unique testing ground.
The trials revealed that Indian farmers typically spend between $3.50-5.50 per tree annually on pesticide treatments for RPW—a figure that would make any agronomist wince. With typical plantation densities of 150-200 trees per hectare, we're looking at pesticide costs alone ranging from $550 to $1,100 per hectare annually. Scale that across India's growing date palm acreage, and the numbers become substantial.
But perhaps the most telling insight came from farmer interviews during these trials. Despite the high pesticide expenditure, detection of RPW infestation often comes too late, leading to mortality rates that can reach up to 10% in some regions. For a country ambitious about expanding its date palm cultivation, these numbers represent both a challenge and an opportunity.
We have documented our journey through the date palm orchards of India in earlier blogs. Suffice it to say that it was a baptism by fire. We saw firsthand the destruction and havoc wreaked by RPW across agri-ecological zones in India.
A Tale of Two Markets
ICARDA (International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas) has been doing heavy lifting with their extensive ground research on the challenges of invasive pests in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Their research on Saudi Arabia and Egypt—the date palm equivalent of Silicon Valley—offers a sobering glimpse into the reality.
Let’s start with Saudi Arabia, where date palms aren’t just trees—they’re national treasures. The kingdom’s date palm sector loses approximately $401 million annually to our tiny friend, the Red Palm Weevil. That’s roughly equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of 80,000 cars, if we’re keeping score in modern terms. It's a stark reminder that agricultural pests don't just eat into profits—they take a significant bite out of our carbon sequestration capacity as well.
Egypt's situation presents an even more complex challenge. Despite a lower financial loss of $213 million, the country grapples with a much higher RPW infestation rate of 7%. Even assuming that current control measures are 75% effective, Egypt is still losing around 280,000 trees annually, representing carbon storage equivalent to adding roughly 71,000 cars to the road.
Together, these two countries alone are losing not just vital agricultural output, but also significant carbon sequestration capacity—equivalent to putting about 151,000 additional cars on the road each year. The stark difference in infestation rates between these two major producers (2% vs 7%) highlights both the challenge and opportunity in early pest detection and management.
A Global Picture Emerges
When we extrapolate these findings globally, using FAOSTAT’s latest data, the numbers become properly eye-watering. With approximately 1.3 million hectares under date palm cultivation worldwide, and an average density of 190 trees per hectare, we’re looking at roughly 246 million trees globally.
Here’s where it gets interesting: customer interviews and academic literature suggest that between 3% to 15% of these trees are lost annually to RPW infestation. Even taking a modest 3% average loss rate, we’re talking about 7.34 million trees lost each year. At current tree yield and replacement cost, this translates to an annual global loss exceeding $1.8 billion.
And that’s before we factor in the multiplier effect of preventing future infestations or the potential application of similar technology to other palms (coconut, oil, ornamental, etc.) and other trees beyond date palms. For instance, the emerald ash borer (EAB) is devastating ash trees across the United States. Texas A&M Forest Service published a sobering analysis highlighting a US$19 billion cost to treat, remove, and replace lost ash trees from EAB attack over a 20-year period, for the state of Texas alone!
Perhaps the most compelling aspect isn’t just financial opportunity. Every lost date palm represents roughly 318 kg of carbon storage capacity eliminated. With an estimated ~7.5 million date palms lost to RPW that is equivalent to adding about 197,000 cars to the road each year.
The Path Forward
The date palm sector stands at an interesting crossroads. On one side, we have centuries-old agroforestry practices; on the other, we have modern technology promising early detection and prevention. The market is ripe (pun intended) for disruption, and the numbers make a compelling case for investment.
About The Author
The writer specializes in agricultural technology markets and has a peculiar fondness for turning complex market analyses into digestible narratives. They can be found wandering through date palm orchards, calculator in hand, muttering about weevils.
References
The magnitude, diversity, and distribution of the economic costs of invasive terrestrial invertebrates worldwide, David Renault, Elena Angulo, Ross N. Cuthbert, Phillip J. Haubrock, César Capinha, Alok Bang, Andrew M. Kramer, Franck Courchamp - Science of the Total Environment, August 2022
The Socioeconomic Impact Assessment of Red Palm Weevil in Egypt and Saudi Arabia: An Ex-ante Evaluation, ICARDA (FAOSTAT), November 2023
Statewide Summary of Potential Impacts of Emerald Ash Borer, Texas A&M Forest Service, 2017
FAOSTAT
Satyanweshi - Truth Seeker
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