Douglas H. Pachico

Dynamics of the agricultural frontier in the Amazon and savannas of Brazil: analyzing the impact of policy and technology

While many government policies stimulating deforestation have been reversed, private sector lobbies for uncontrolled logging and soybean export corridors threaten the Amazon. Under a favorable scenario (macroeconomic stabilization, controlled logging and road building, sustainable technologies, global environmental markets) reconversion of natural habitat could be 30% lower than under unfavorable policies and technologies, without sacrificing production.

Harmonizing the agricultural biotechnology debate for the benefit of African farmers

The intense debate over agricultural biotechnology is at once fascinating, confusing and disappointing. It is complicated by issues of ethical, moral, socio-economic, political, philosophical and scientific import. Its vocal champions exaggerate their claims of biotechnology as saviour of the poor and hungry, while, equally loudly, its opponents declare it as the doomsday devil of agriculture. Sandwiched between these two camps is the rest of the public, either absorbed or indifferent. Biotechnology issues specific to the African public must include crop and animal productivity, food security, alleviation of poverty and gender equity, and must exclude political considerations. Food and its availability are basic human rights issues—for people without food, everything else is insignificant. Although we should discuss and challenge new technologies and their products, bringing the agricultural biotechnology debate into food aid for Africa where millions are faced with life-or-death situations is irresponsible. Agricultural biotechnology promises the impoverished African a means to improve food security and reduce pressures on the environment, provided the perceived risks associated with the technology are addressed. This paper attempts to harmonize the debate, and to examine the potential benefits and risks that agricultural biotechnology brings to African farmers. Key words : Agriculture, biotechnology, biotechnology debate, biotechnology and Africa, biotechnology issues, food security, poverty alleviation. African Journal of Biotechnology Vol.2(11) 2003: 394-416

The distribution of benefits from technical change among classes of consumers and producers: An ex anteanalysis of beans in Brazil

Abstract Because new agricultural technology in developing countries has sometimes bypassed small farmers who are an important social group in low income countries, design of technology specifically appropriate to small farmers has been advocated as a policy goal. This paper appraises the comparative returns to investment in small farm biased, scale neutral, and large farm biased technology for bean production in Brazil. A consumer surplus model is developed to estimate the distribution of benefits among producing sectors and classes of consumers. While previous studies have relied on geometrical approximations to measure economic benefits as the area under the supply shifts, here an exact analytic solution is obtained by integrating from the supply axis. Scale neutral technology leads to significant small farmer benefits while maximizing benefits to consumers. Large farm biased technology results in less benefits to small farmers and consumers and only minor gains to large farmers when compared to scale neutral technology. Small farm biased technology produces the greatest gains to small farmers, but the lowest level of benefits to consumers.

Stages in technology diffusion among small farmers: Biological and management screening of a new rice variety in Nepal

Agricultural research and extension systems in low-income countries like Nepal face an array of highly varied small farm systems for which new technology must be screened and adapted. A case study of a new rice variety in Nepal shows that in the initial stage of diffusion large farmers are more able to absorb the risk of evaluating the biological potential of the new technology. In the take-off stage of diffusion, when adopters move to full-scale production with the new technology, it is evaluated for its management characteristics and small farmers may emerge as the greater adopters. This paper suggests that rapid adoption of new technology by small farmers requires, firstly, decentralization of biological screening to small-scale site-specific trials with farmers and secondly, a focus of extension efforts on the evaluation of full-scale management requirements with the participation of small farmers.

Bean technology for small farmers: Biological, economic and policy issues

Abstract This paper assesses the feasibility of developing new bean technology for small farmers in Latin America. Adaptation to associated cropping system, plant architecture and adaptation to stress and low inputs are discussed as means of biasing technology towards small farmers. The economic impact of new technology biased towards small farmers who are competing with large farmers is analyzed and the costs of developing small farm technology are noted. Some policy influences conditioning the decision whether to bias technology towards small farmers are considered.

Ex ante analysis of new technology: A comparison of cassava for the feed and fresh markets in Colombia

Abstract This paper estimates the expected economic benefits of investment in two alternative research programmes to improve yields of cassava in Colombia. The benefits from an industrial cassava variety for the animal feed market are compared with those from a higher quality cassava suitable for the fresh food market. A linear programming least-cost feed mix model is used to calculate the cost reduction is poultry feed due to new cassava technology. The impact of this cost reduction is traced through single equation models of poultry supply and demand in order to estimate social benefits in an ex ante consumer surplus framework. Costs of the alternative research programmes are projected and internal rates of return are calculated.

A post‐Green Revolution strategy for the improvement of small farmer‐grown common beans

Abstract Since 1973, the CIAT Bean Progam has focused on disease resistance breeding, with selection for performance under low input conditions and adaptation to farmers’ current production systems. This strategy was chosen to make new bean technology more accessible to resource poor farmers in low income countries than had been the products of the Green Revolution approach of selecting for maximum yield under optimum high input conditions. A case study of adoption of new disease resistant bean varieties among small farmers in Costa Rica shows that the disease resistance strategy has resulted in varieties that improve productivity even in farmers’ traditional shifting cultivation system. However, many small farmers are finding it advantageous to intensify management in order to raise the gains from the new varieties. Such success in a disease resistance, small farm‐oriented crop improvement program, depends critically on strong national agricultural research capacity, and a continuing commitment to deploy...

Technical change in traditional small farm agriculture: The case of beans in Costa Rica

Abstract Although the conventional view has been that technical change has generally bypassed the small farmer in Latin America, the case of beans in Costa Rica illustrates how new technologies can reach the small farmer. The institutional innovation of a multi-institutional integrated effort of research, on-farm trials, seed production and marketing provided a means of developing and transferring new technology to small farmers. Simultaneously, increasing pressure on available land resources undermined the viability of traditional small farm production systems, making attractive the adoption of more capital and labor intensive production systems. The design of improved technology for small farmers must be guided, therefore, by a dynamic understanding of their limiting factors, and should be accompanied by an integrated flow of services to facilitate technology development and transfer.