Mywish K. Maredia

Green Revolution research saved an estimated 18 to 27 million hectares from being brought into agricultural production

New estimates of the impacts of germplasm improvement in the major staple crops between 1965 and 2004 on global land-cover change are presented, based on simulations carried out using a global economic model (Global Trade Analysis Project Agro-Ecological Zone), a multicommodity, multiregional computable general equilibrium model linked to a global spatially explicit database on land use. We estimate the impact of removing the gains in cereal productivity attributed to the widespread adoption of improved varieties in developing countries. Here, several different effects—higher yields, lower prices, higher land rents, and trade effects—have been incorporated in a single model of the impact of Green Revolution research (and subsequent advances in yields from crop germplasm improvement) on land-cover change. Our results generally support the Borlaug hypothesis that increases in cereal yields as a result of widespread adoption of improved crop germplasm have saved natural ecosystems from being converted to agriculture. However, this relationship is complex, and the net effect is of a much smaller magnitude than Borlaug proposed. We estimate that the total crop area in 2004 would have been between 17.9 and 26.7 million hectares larger in a world that had not benefited from crop germplasm improvement since 1965. Of these hectares, 12.0–17.7 million would have been in developing countries, displacing pastures and resulting in an estimated 2 million hectares of additional deforestation. However, the negative impacts of higher food prices on poverty and hunger under this scenario would likely have dwarfed the welfare effects of agricultural expansion.

Impacts of food crop improvement research: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract The paper reviews and summarizes evidences of impacts of crop improvement research of major food crops in Africa. It provides evidence of increased availability of improved varieties of major food crops to farmers in Africa, increased food production in regions where adoption has occurred, and positive returns to research investment, indicating that agricultural research in Africa has had productivity increasing impacts on its agriculture. However, research impacts vary considerably across countries and regions within a country as a result of agroclimatic factors and policy environment, which affects the supply of seeds and other inputs, and the continuity and stability of research investments. The paper points to a number of important issues, both internal and external to the agricultural research system organization that need to be addressed if agricultural research is to provide a stimulus for modernizing African agriculture. Given the small size of food crop production area in many African countries, it is important for research systems to take full advantage of research spill-ins from regional and international research organizations. There is a great potential to increase the efficiency of research systems by improving the coordination among members of national research systems and continuing improvements in collaborations between NARSs and regional and international organizations.

Efficiency of research investments in the presence of international spillovers: wheat research in developing countries

Expenditures on agricultural research in the public sector, including the International Agricultural Research Centers (IARCs) have stagnated and in some cases, declined sharply in recent years. This has focused attention on issues of efficiency of agricultural research systems, especially the number, size, scope, type, and locations of their programs. This paper examines the issue of research efficiency through a case study of wheat improvement research in developing countries. The basic premise of this study is that the optimal level of research investment should be determined in a global model that incorporates direct research spill-ins. An analytical framework is developed to determine the threshold levels of crop production in a country (or a region within a country) needed to justify crop improvement research programs of different sizes in the presence of spill-ins from abroad. Spill-in coefficients are estimated from yield performance of varieties of different origins grown across a range of environments. The model is then applied to analyze the efficiency of current investments in 69 wheat improvement research programs in 35 developing countries. A major conclusion of the paper is that given the magnitude of potential spill-ins from the international research system, many wheat research programs could significantly increase the efficiency of resource use by reducing the size of their wheat research programs and focusing on the screening of varieties developed elsewhere. ©2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Tracking crop varieties using genotyping-by-sequencing markers: a case study using cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz)

BackgroundAccurate identification of crop cultivars is crucial in assessing the impact of crop improvement research outputs. Two commonly used identification approaches, elicitation of variety names from farmer interviews and morphological plant descriptors, have inherent uncertainty levels. Genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) was used in a case study as an alternative method to track released varieties in farmers’ fields, using cassava, a clonally propagated root crop widely grown in the tropics, and often disseminated through extension services and informal seed systems. A total of 917 accessions collected from 495 farming households across Ghana were genotyped at 56,489 SNP loci along with a “reference library” of 64 accessions of released varieties and popular landraces.ResultsAccurate cultivar identification and ancestry estimation was accomplished through two complementary clustering methods: (i) distance-based hierarchical clustering; and (ii) model-based maximum likelihood admixture analysis. Subsequently, 30 % of the identified accessions from farmers’ fields were matched to specific released varieties represented in the reference library. ADMIXTURE analysis revealed that the optimum number of major varieties was 11 and matched the hierarchical clustering results. The majority of the accessions (69 %) belonged purely to one of the 11 groups, while the remaining accessions showed two or more ancestries. Further analysis using subsets of SNP markers reproduced results obtained from the full-set of markers, suggesting that GBS can be done at higher DNA multiplexing, thereby reducing the costs of variety fingerprinting. A large proportion of discrepancy between genetically unique cultivars as identified by markers and variety names as elicited from farmers were observed. Clustering results from ADMIXTURE analysis was validated using the assumption-free Discriminant Analysis of Principal Components (DAPC) method.ConclusionWe show that genome-wide SNP markers from increasingly affordable GBS methods coupled with complementary cluster analysis is a powerful tool for fine-scale population structure analysis and variety identification. Moreover, the ancestry estimation provides a framework for quantifying the contribution of exotic germplasm or older improved varieties to the genetic background of contemporary improved cultivars.

The economics of wheat research in developing countries: The one hundred million dollar puzzle

Abstract Currently, 1,150 scientists are carrying out wheat improvement research in developing countries with an annual budget of around

Is agricultural research still a public good

100 million. Because of the recent reduction in agricultural research budgets, this study marshalls evidence from 71 wheat research programs in 35 developing countries to address the following puzzle: what is the optimal size, type and location of wheat research programs in the developing world? The analysis reveals that if research spillins are taken into consideration, almost half of the wheat improvement programs in developing countries are inefficient. The efficiency of wheat research in many National Agricultural Research Systems can be increased by reducing the size of research programs, consolidating state and federal research programs, and shifting from wheat-breeding research to capturing spillins from other countries and from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Can mobile phone-based animated videos induce learning and technology adoption among low-literate farmers? A field experiment in Burkina Faso

Biotechnology is redefining the nature of agricultural research and intellectual property. In response, public agricultural research institutions are increasingly protecting their intellectual property and commercializing research results. This raises the question: Is agricultural research still a public good? This paper is a critical first step in understanding how increasingly private ownership of intellectual property affects the agribusiness environment and the evolving role of public agricultural research institutions. The innovative step is the development of a neo-Schumpeterian model which examines whether commercialization of public research maximizes social welfare. The model contains two types of research firms: large firms such as the major life-science companies; and small university-related firms (SMURFs). Results show that both large firms and SMURFs underinvest in research relative to the social optimum, that research investment can exhibit cyclical behavior, and that there is a continued, albeit diminished, role for public agricultural research as the life-science revolution progresses. lJEL Classifications: Q13, O34, L10r

Ex Post Evaluation of Economic Impacts of Agricultural Research Programs: a Tour of Good Practice

ABSTRACT This article explores an innovative approach to deliver information about new agricultural technology that combines a versatile and potentially lower cost method of developing animated videos with another low-cost method of sharing it on mobile devices (i.e. mobile phone). It describes a randomized controlled field experiment conducted in Burkina Faso to evaluate the effectiveness of animated videos shown on mobile phone compared with the traditional extension method (live demonstration) in inducing learning and adoption of two post-harvest technologies among low-literate farmers. Results suggest that video-based training was as effective as the traditional method in inducing learning and understanding. For technologies that farmers were already aware of animated video shown on the mobile phone was also as effective as live demonstration in inducing adoption. However, in transferring new technologies, the traditional method was more effective in inducing adoption at p < .10, but not at p < .05. Potential role of mobile phone-based videos as part of the agricultural extension system is discussed.