Identifying crop research priorities based on potential economic and poverty reduction impacts: The case of cassava in Africa, Asia, and Latin America

Abstract

It is widely recognized that increasing agricultural production to the levels needed to feed an expanding world population requires sharply increased public investment in research and development and widespread adoption of new technologies, but funding for national and international agricultural research has rather declined in recent years. In this situation, priority setting has become increasingly important for allocating scarce research resources among competing needs to achieve greater impacts. Using partial equilibrium economic surplus models and poverty impact simulations, this paper assesses cassava research priorities in Africa, Latin America and Caribbean, and Asia based on the potential economic and poverty reduction impacts of alternative research and technology options. The results showed that efficient planting material production and distribution systems and sustainable crop and soil fertility management practices have the greatest expected economic and poverty reduction impacts in the three regions. Lack of clean planting materials is a major constraint to adoption and it is envisaged that efficient production and distribution systems for planting material can accelerate technology adoption by farmers. Similarly, sustainable crop and soil fertility management practices play a key role in closing the observed yield gaps, especially in Africa. The paper discusses the results of the priority assessment for key cassava research options and concludes with the implications for cassava research priorities.

Ex Ante Assessment of Returns on Research Investments to Address the Impact of Fusarium Wilt Tropical Race 4 on Global Banana Production

“…The analytical framework used for the quantitative ex ante assessment follows the methodology used in the wider RTB priority assessment study across crops and is described in Alene et al (2018) . For the assessment of the Foc research options, these steps comprised the selection and detailed description of research options, compilation of data and parameter estimation, the quantification of potential impacts using a partial equilibrium economic surplus (ES) model and subsequent cost-benefit analysis, sensitivity analysis, and an online stakeholder feedback survey to validate parameter assumptions.…”

“…To quantify the benefits from adopting the innovations developed under each of the research options at the national level, we used a partial equilibrium ES model estimated over a 25-year period (2014–2039). This quantitative approach of computing the ES resulting from a research-induced supply shift is a standard procedure in the agricultural economics and impact assessment field (see, e.g., Alston et al, 1995 ) and has been used in many previous studies (e.g., Alene et al, 2009 , 2018 ; Fuglie and Thiele, 2009 ). We assumed elasticities of supply and demand to be 1 and 0.5, respectively, across all technologies and countries due to lack of other information.…”

Benefits from the adoption of genetically engineered innovations in the Ugandan banana and cassava sectors: An ex ante analysis

“…Estimates from producer and consumer surplus can be weighed by the FGT index. This is the approach followed by Alene et al (2018). The authors proposed the following formula based on the FGT index to transform changes in economic surplus into change in the estimated change in the total number of poor moving above the poverty line as follows:…”

Potassium Fertilisation Is Required to Sustain Cassava Yield and Soil Fertility

“…It is reputed to grow in soils with low fertility and is also drought and acid tolerant [2,4,5]. As the world's third most important crop, it acts as a staple food for at least 500 million people worldwide; its tuberous roots are a main source of calories [4][5][6][7][8].…”