price and yield effects of spill overs in international agricultural research evidence from icrisat and australia international agricultural research aimed at improving productivity in developing countries also has spill over effects on developed countries research that affects the supply of commodities is also likely to affect the world price of tradeable commodities in this paper the effects of spill overs to australia from successful cost reducing research into sorghum and chickpeas at the international crops research institute for the semi arid tropics icrisat aimed at developing countries are assessed genetic materials developed and distributed through icrisat are used in australia to increase productivity the price reducing effects of successful research are incorporated into the analysis of spill over impacts on productivity the net effects on welfare for producers and consumers of sorghum and chickpeas in australia and the rest of the world row are identified the consequences of the impacts are discussed and the implications for further funding of international agricultural research are also discussed

the impact of integrated aquaculture agriculture on small scale farms in southern malawi sustainable agricultural intensification is an urgent challenge for sub saharan africa one potential solution is to rely on local farmers knowledge for improved management of diverse on farm resources and integration among various farm enterprises in this article we analyze the farm level impact of one recent example namely the integrated aquaculture agriculture iaa technologies that have been developed and disseminated in a participatory manner in malawi based on a 2004 survey of 315 respondents 166 adopters and 149 nonadopters we test the hypothesis that adoption of iaa is associated with improved farm productivity and more efficient use of resources estimating a technical inefficiency function shows that iaa farms were significantly more efficient compared to nonadopters iaa farms also had higher total factor productivity higher farm income per hectare and higher returns to family labor

the gains from agricultural research under distorted trade abstract this paper explores the gains from research issue within the framework of a product which is traded with the aid of export subsidies because of the taxpayer burden associated with increased exports it is quite possible for the returns to research to be negative a decline in the rate of protection through a rising world market leads to a linear increase in the gains from research while a rise in the internal support price will cause a non linear and negative response if the supply shift is pivotal and a linear and negative response if it is parallel finally global returns to research will be higher than individual country returns and will always be positive in a free trade environment

evaluating returns to agricultural research a review this paper reviews and compares the most common approaches used to evaluate public agricultural research investment ex post studies fall into two major groups a consumer and producer surplus analyses estimating average rates of return to research and b production function analyses estimating marginal rates of return to research ex ante studies fall into four groups a those using scoring models to rank research activities b those employing benefit cost analysis to establish rates of return to research c those using simulation models and d those using mathematical programming to select an optimal mix of research activities

the effects of supply shifts on producers surplus changes in the supply curve caused by technological improvements in production or changes in national policy may or may not benefit producers as a whole depending on the type of shift in the supply curve a structured analysis of different changes in the supply curve that model this situation is given and the change in producers surplus is examined depending on quantitative aspects of the supply and demand curves for supply and demand curves that are linear or power functions a small downward pivot of the supply curve will increase producers surplus only if the equilibrium point is far enough into the elastic region of the demand curve and any downward pivot of the supply curve will decrease producers surplus if the equilibrium point is in the inelastic region of the demand curve similar results are obtained for the more general case of convex supply and demand curves

has mercantilism reduced urban poverty in ssa perception of boom bust and the china africa trade in lome and bamako this paper addresses the immediate impacts of the china africa trade on africa s informal traders and its longer term impact on urban poverty based on a comparison of the major cities of two west african countries and drawing on semi structured interviews with traders and on schedule based interviews with key informants in government business and the informal trade sector the findings are that the increase in imports from china initially broadened access to trading for the poor creating short term improvements in livelihoods but competition is driving down profit margins and restricting the trade to a survival mechanism for many today thus it has provided limited long term potential as an economic platform for national development and poverty reduction the findings are discussed in terms of structuration theory and in terms of alternative conceptualizations of informal trade in africa

ex ante evaluation of the economic impact of agricultural biotechnology the case of porcine somatotropin advances in biotechnology are leading to the creation of products which are expected to have a significant impact on agricultural production much discussion in the literature has focused on possible impacts of biotechnology on agriculture kalter and tauer hueth and just stallman and schmid but few quantitative estimates of the probable impact exist this paper examines the impact of a new growth hormone porcine somatotropin pst on the u s pork industry our approach is generally useful for ex ante analyses of new biotechnologies where experimental estimates of the impact of the technology are available and where the nature of the commodity produced may be affected by the new biotechnology pst is a naturally occurring somatotropin protein produced in the pig s pituitary supplemental pst has been shown in experimental research to lead to improvement in average daily gain improvement in feed efficiency and change in carcass composition of the pig by converting fat to lean meat the purpose of this paper is to simulate the likely impact of supplemental pst use on prices and quantities of pork at the retail and farm levels and on net benefits of producers and consumers the approach taken here to quantifying the impact of pst is in the spirit of previous ex ante approaches to estimating returns to agricultural research norton and davis this study explicitly takes into account a interrelationships between the domestic hog and pork markets b interrelationships between pork and other meats c interrelationships between the domestic and international mar

economic returns to cowpea research extension and input distribution in senegal abstract this paper calculates the rate of return to a set of cowpea research extension and distribution projects in senegal to be between 31 and 92 the results show that a modestly funded program on a secondary crop can be successful they also indicate that programs may increase their effectiveness by addressing specific household needs in this case by focusing on short cycle varieties that provide food during the hunger season prior to the traditional harvest

agricultural research effort conceptual clarity and measurement abstract this paper emphasizes the need for basic conceptual clarity regarding the measures of research effort in econometric analyses this conceptual clarity could help reduce the misinterpretation of historical and institutional contexts underlying agricultural research effort after a brief review of econometric studies estimating the returns to and determinants of research the centrality of the conceptual contextual and causal significance of this measure is examined conceptualized and measured at the input frontier of the research process an expenditure measure of research reveals the institutional features and changes in the research process in india over time this basic understanding is essential to develop appropriate econometric specifications and correspondingly effective research policy statements

the calculation of research benefits with linear and non linear specifications of the demand and supply reply this paper provides a comparison of research benefits for linear and nonlinear constant elasticity nlce specifications of supply and demand with a pivotal supply shift framework the comparison allows for a sensitivity test of results to different values for demand and supply elasticity the main finding is that the values of the gross annual research benefits calculated for the nlce specification are larger than those calculated for the linear specification with price elastic supply but are smaller with price inelastic supply the analysis suggests that the use of an nlce specification and a pivotal shift due to research is usually preferable to use of a linear supply curve with pivotal shift

potential impacts of bt eggplant on economic surplus and farmers health in india in this article the potential impacts of bt eggplant technology in indian agriculture are analyzed several proprietary bt hybrids are likely to be commercialized in the near future based on field trial data it is shown that the technology can significantly reduce insecticide applications and increase effective yields comprehensive farm survey data are used to project farm level effects and future adoption rates simulations show that the aggregate economic surplus gains of bt hybrids could be around us 108 million per year consumers will capture a large share of these gains but farmers and the innovating company will benefit too as the company has also shared its technology with the public sector bt open pollinated varieties might become available with a certain time lag this would make the technology more accessible especially for resource poor farmers entailing further improvements in welfare and distribution effects the wider implications of the private public technology transfer are discussed furthermore the potential benefits for farmers health resulting from reduced insecticide applications are examined using an econometric model and a cost of illness approach these benefits are worth an additional 3 4 million per year yet they constitute only a small fraction of the technology s environmental and health externalities more research is needed for comprehensive impact analysis

resource use and technological progress in agriculture a dynamic general equilibrium analysis we analyze the global effects of economic and population growth and the impact of a slowdown in agricultural total factor productivity tfp on agriculture and forest resources using a dynamic multi region computable general equilibrium model with land use and cover detail given the current consensus about the growth of the world economy our results suggest that food security will not be threatened and agricultural activities will not encroach on forest resources over the next decade a slowdown in agricultural tfp growth might lead to higher crop prices in all regions with south east asia facing the steepest increases a slowdown in agricultural tfp growth also might be accompanied by higher conversion rates of forestland to farmland as well as by greater environmental or ecological damages on the remaining forestland

consumer demand for rice grain quality and returns to research for quality improvement in southeast asia abundant world rice supply has led to renewed interest in improving grain quality of modem rice varieties implicit prices of grain characteristics are estimated for thailand indonesia and the philippines these prices are used to evaluate rice breeding goals and to estimate returns to research for quality improvement results indicate that the past focus on physical quality improvement was appropriate and future welfare gains are possible from chemical quality improvement returns to quality improvement are substantial and indicate underinvestment in this type of research as asian rice production grew faster than population from 1965 to 1980 the real price of rice declined in world markets and several asian countries flinn and unnevehr greater supply and falling prices have increased concern for rice grain quality improvement in national and international research programs in tropical asia khush in this article the consumer goods characteristics model develo ed bv ladd and suvannunt is used to estimaie thedimplicit prices of rice grain quality characteristics in thailand indonesia and the philippines these estimated implicit prices answer three questions a do observed consumer preferences correspond to measures of quality used to screen material in breeding programs b are consumer preferences similar across countries so that quality improvement can be undertaken at the international level c what are the returns to re

research payoffs from quality improvement the case of protein in australian wheat a model is developed for evaluating the size and distribution of the economic benefits from research that improves the quality of an export commodity quality improvement achieved by research or by agronomic practices shifts the domestic and or excess demand curves for an export commodity research costs are not modeled but any shift in the supply curve due to a change in yield for example accompanying the quality improvement is included the model is used to estimate the gains from research that increases protein content in australian wheat it is estimated that australia has the potential to obtain net benefits up to a 53 million per year from a one percentage point increase in the protein content in wheat over 90 of these gains accrue to wheat producers

consumer s surplus without apology the purpose of this paper is to settle the controversy surrounding consumer s surplus and by so doing to validate its use as a tool of welfare economics i will show that observed consumer s surplus can be rigorously utilized to estimate the unobservable compensating and equivalent variations the correct theoretical measures of the welfare impact of changes in prices and income on an individual i derive precise upper and lower bounds on the percentage errors of approximating the compensating and equivalent variations with consumer s surplus these bounds can be explicitly calculated from observable demand data and it is clear that in most applications the error of approximation will be very small in fact the error will often be overshadowed by the errors involved in estimating the demand curve the results in no way depend upon arguments about the constancy of the marginal utility of income consequently this paper supplies specific empirical criteria which can replace the apologetic caveats frequently employed by those who presently apply consumer s surplus moreover the results imply that consumer s surplus is usually a very good approximation to the appropriate welfare measures to preview below i establish the validity of these rules of thumb for a

impact of agricultural research and extension on crop productivity in pakistan a production function approach abstract this study analyzes the contribution that agricultural research and extension made to crop productivity in pakistan from 1955 to 1981 using a production function approach it estimates the marginal internal rate of return to these activities the estimated rate of around 36 is in the range reported for other countries considering this high rate of return and the low public spending on agricultural research and extension in pakistan the obvious policy recommendation is to allocate more and higher quality resources to these activities to facilitate a rapid increase in agricultural productivity

estimating the benefits of public plant breeding beyond profits in this study we estimate increases in producer revenue total exports and welfare effects from the genetic gains of the rice breeding program at the university of arkansas system uofa division of agriculture from 1983 to 2016 rice producers are paid based on both the quantity and quality of rice therefore we implement a cluster specific fixed effects model based on location and year to identify the contributions of the uofa breeding program for both paddy yields quantity and head rice yields quality attribute over time additionally the estimated increased yield was imputed into the riceflow trade model to estimate price and export effects including spillover benefits from uofa varieties we find that on average u s rice producers gain 30 9 million usd annually the expansion of u s long grain rice exports facilitated by the uofa is estimated to be 53 000 milled metric tons annually which is enough to lower rice prices by over 1 in low income countries such as haiti panama and nicaragua overall the public breeding program at the uofa contributes to 1 positive genetic gains 2 additional revenue in the mid south and 3 increased trade between the u s and rice consuming countries

the distribution of gains from technological advance when input quality varies empirical evidence about new corn production technology in illinois supports the hypothesis that yield and output enhancing effects vary depending on whether technology is input here land quality dependent or independent in turn these differences affect the distribution of economic surplus from technology adoption across geographic regions with varying land quality a competitive market clearing model for a traded commodity is used to estimate the gains in economic surplus from technological advance

meat and milk self sufficiency in asia forecast trends and implications abstract recent structural changes in dietary patterns in asia resulting from economic development are placing increasing pressure on the existing production systems in the region particularly those systems producing ruminant meat non ruminant meat and milk this has significant policy implications for the countries in the region in terms of self sufficiency goals in these commodities and the associated inter and intra regional trade opportunities in the future forecasts of ruminant meat non ruminant meat and milk production and consumption for selected asian countries between the years 2000 and 2010 revealed the following china pakistan and viet nam are likely to be self sufficient with respect to ruminant meat malaysia is likely to continue to be a net importer of ruminant meat india and malaysia will be more than self sufficient with respect to non ruminant meat with the converse being true for pakistan and india laos and pakistan will be self sufficient with respect to milk production with the possibility of indonesia thailand and cambodia becoming self sufficient if the current trends continue structural changes in the early 1980s generally resulted in higher average annual growth rates of production particularly in non ruminant meat production thus forecasts of ruminant meat production and consumption by 2000 using the medium term average annual growth rates for production present a more favourable outcome in terms of self sufficiency for countries such as bangladesh the philippines and viet nam but a less favourable outcome for countries such as indonesia malaysia laos and india similar forecasts for non ruminant meat indicated an improvement in the long term non ruminant self sufficiency estimates for most cases particularly for bangladesh china and cambodia intensification and commercialisation of meat production systems have increased meat self sufficiency in a number of countries but often at the expense of grain self sufficiency given these trends the impact of trade liberalisation measures on livestock production in the region and inter and intra regional trade of livestock commodities and grain is likely to be significant

a dual approach to evaluating research benefits in the presence of trade distortions we present a new approach for evaluating the welfare consequences of technical change a major feature is its ability to incorporate multiple distortions and multiple sources of technical change in interrelated markets a modified balance of trade function provides money measures of welfare change in terms of producer profits consumer expenditures and tax revenues alternative specifications of technical change are presented to capture the effects of differences in the form of technical change in an illustrative numerical example the approach is applied to a case involving two distortions and technical changes in two related markets the example shows that the approach is reasonably easy to use and that accounting correctly for price distortions can have important implications for research benefit measures

genetic improvements in major us crops the size and distribution of benefits the distribution of welfare gains of genetic improvements in major us crops is estimated using a world agricultural trade model multi market welfare estimates were 75 larger than estimates based on the price exogenous change in revenue method frequently used by plant breeders annual benefits of these genetic improvements range from us 400 600 million depending on the supply shift specification of this 44 60 accrues to the us 24 34 accrues to other developed countries developing and transitional economies capture 16 22 of the welfare gain the global benefits of a one time permanent increase in us yields are us 8 1 billion discounted at 10 and us 15 4 billion discounted at 5 gains to consumers in developing and transitional economies range from us 6 1 billion 10 discount rate to us 11 6 billion 5 discount rate

the calculation of returns to research in distorted markets reply abstract most of the emperical literature calculating rates of return to publicly sponsored research assumes that research is the only relevant government intervention for most countries this assumption is untenable this paper shows that improperly measuring government inducedmarket distortions can severely bias research rate of return calculations if the interaction between successful research and other government interventions increases the cost of the other interventions then neglecting market distortions unambigously increases the calculated rate of return three examples of government induced distortions show that the magnitude of the upward bias in calculated rates of return can be extremely large in some cases more than 100 percentage points a normative implication is that governments should account for interactions between research and price interventions when determining research support levels a positive implication is that existing government research funding patterns are more readily explainable as reasonable behavior by a government that accounts for these interactions

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

the empirical assessment of technology differences comparing the comparable this paper compares technologies across space and time on the basis of factual and counterfactual substitution elasticities and argues that differences in estimated substitution elasticities should be decomposed into two counterfactual components while the first component is designed to indicate how the ease of substitution is altered by varied economic circumstances the second addresses the question of how technologies would compare under genuinely comparable situations this argument is illustrated by the example of energy price elasticities of capital before and after the oil crisis of the early 1970s