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Clone of Pesticide Use in Central America for Lab work


This model is an attempt to simulate what is commonly referred to as the “pesticide treadmill” in agriculture and how it played out in the cotton industry in Central America after the Second World War until around the 1990s.

The cotton industry expanded dramatically in Central America after WW2, increasing from 20,000 hectares to 463,000 in the late 1970s. This expansion was accompanied by a huge increase in industrial pesticide application which would eventually become the downfall of the industry.

The primary pest for cotton production, bol weevil, became increasingly resistant to chemical pesticides as they were applied each year. The application of pesticides also caused new pests to appear, such as leafworms, cotton aphids and whitefly, which in turn further fuelled increased application of pesticides. 

The treadmill resulted in massive increases in pesticide applications: in the early years they were only applied a few times per season, but this application rose to up to 40 applications per season by the 1970s; accounting for over 50% of the costs of production in some regions. 

The skyrocketing costs associated with increasing pesticide use were one of the key factors that led to the dramatic decline of the cotton industry in Central America: decreasing from its peak in the 1970s to less than 100,000 hectares in the 1990s. “In its wake, economic ruin and environmental devastation were left” as once thriving towns became ghost towns, and once fertile soils were wasted, eroded and abandoned (Lappe, 1998). 

Sources: Douglas L. Murray (1994), Cultivating Crisis: The Human Cost of Pesticides in Latin America, pp35-41; Francis Moore Lappe et al (1998), World Hunger: 12 Myths, 2nd Edition, pp54-55.

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Overview:

Overall, this analysis showed a COVID-19 outbreak in Burnie, the government policies to curtail that, and some of the impacts it is having on the Burnie economy.


Variables

The simulation made use of the variables such as; Covid-19: (1): Infection rate. (2): Recovery rate. (3): Death rate. (4): Immunity loss rate etc. 


Assumptions:

From the model, it is apparent that government health policies directly affect the economic output of Burnie. A better health policy has proven to have a better economic condition for Burnie and verse versa.


In the COVID-19 model, some variables are set at fixed rates, including the immunity loss rate, recovery rate, death rate, infection rate, and case impact rate, as this is normally influenced by the individual health conditions and social activities.

Moving forward, we decided to set the recovery rate to 0.7, which is a rate above the immunity loss rate of 0.5, so, the number of susceptible could be diminished over time.


Step 1: Try to set all value variables at their lowest point and then stimulate. 

 

Outcome: the number of those Infected are– 135; Recovered – 218; Cases – 597; Death – 18,175; GDP – 10,879.


Step 2: Try to increase the variables of Health Policy, Quarantine, and Travel Restriction to 0.03, others keep the same as step 1, and simulate


Outcome: The number of those Infected – 166 (up); Recovered – 249 (up); Cases – 554 (down); Death – 18,077 (down); GDP – 824 (down).


With this analysis, it is obvious that the increase of health policy, quarantine, and travel restriction will assist in increase recovery rate, a decrease in confirmed cases, a reduction in death cases or fatality rate, but a decrease in Burnie GDP.


Step 3: Enlarge the Testing Rate to 0.4, variable, others, maintain the same as step 2, and simulate


Outcome: It can be seen that the number of Infected is down to – 152; those recovered down to – 243; overall cases up to – 1022; those that died down to–17,625; while the GDP remains – 824.


In this step, it is apparent that the increase of testing rate will assist to increase the confirmed cases.


Step 4: Try to change the GDP Growth Rate to 0.14, then Tourism Growth Rate to 0.02, others keep the same as step 3, and then simulate the model


Outcome: what happens is that the Infected number – 152 remains the same; Recovered rate– 243 the same; Number of Cases – 1022 (same); Death – 17,625 (same); but the GDP goes up to– 6,632. 


This final step made it obvious that the increase of GDP growth rate and tourism growth rate will help to improve the overall GDP performance of Burnie's economy.

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This model is comparing healthy and sick residents in Burnie, Tasmania after the Covid-19 Outbreak in 2020. It will also show how the Burnie economy is effected by the disease, how the Government Health Policies are implemented and how they are enforced.

This model is based on the SIR, Susceptible, Infection, Recovery (or Removed) These are the three possible states related to the members of the Burnie population when a contagious decease spreads.

The Government/Government Health Policy, played a big part in the successful decrease in Covid-19 infections. The Government enforced the following.
- No travel (interstate or international)
- Isolation within the residents homes
- Social distancing by 1.5m
- Quarantine
- Non essential companies to be temporarily closed
- Limitations on public gatherings
- And limits on time and kilometers aloud to travel from ones home within a local community

This resulted in lower reported infection rates of Covid-19 and higher recovery rates.

In my opinion:
When the first case was reported the Government could have been even faster to enforce these rules to decrease the fatality rates further for the Burnie, population.  

Assumption: Government policies were only triggered when 10 cases were recorded.
Also, more cases that had been recorded effected the economic growth during this time.

Interesting Findings: In the simulation it shows as the death rates increases towards the end of the week, the rate of testing goes down. You would think that the government would have enforced a higher testing rate over the duration of this time to decrease the number of infections, exposed which would increase the recovery rates faster and more efficiently.  

Figures have been determined by the population of Burnie being 19,380 at the time of assignment.