Fuck that, I do, and it'd be pretty goddamn cheap. Likely benefits are training / practice, unlikely benefits are deeper anthropological and jungle-life (why those plants?) understanding, and the Pascal's Mugger benefit is "huh magic...?". And then there's the weird side-benefit of encouraging scientific investigation of all things.
Seriously, the biggest expense is going to be shipping the researchers.
Would it be cheaper to send soldiers out with vests or gri-gri? Probably in the west at least, vests are more cost effective. If a soldier is worth a million, one in hundred soldiers is saved by a vest during their career and a vest costs a thousand dollars, it's a ten to one return.
But somewhere else, the inputs might be quite different.
Seriously, the biggest expense is going to be shipping the researchers.