This paper estimates the economic impacts of pesticide use on human health and on the environment to gather information on the structure of a possible pesticide tax and on the design of an "environmentally friendly" bread product. The relative importance of these different impacts is determined by what individuals are prepared to pay to avoid a case of human ill health and a unit of environmental damage, measured by bird species in decline. Willingness to pay is estimated using a contingent ranking approach, a variant of the standard contingent valuation method, which is capable of tackling the multidimensional effects associated with pesticide applications. The results suggest that consumers would be willing to pay substantial price markups for environmentally friendly bread loaves and, consequently, that a case could be made for a substantial pesticide tax, preferably differentiated byproduct type. It is also shown that individuals are on average only willing to tolerate between 7-8 cases of human illness to save an entire bird species.
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