Economic Impact Analysis of Marker-Assisted Breeding in Rice

The benefits of developing and releasing salinity-tolerant and phosphorous-deficiency-tolerant rice in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and the Philippines were estimated for marker-assisted breeding as compared to conventional breeding using economic surplus analysis. Marker-assisted breeding is estimated to save at least 2 to 3 years in the breeding cycle and result in incremental benefits over 25 years in the range of $300 to$800 million depending on the country, stress, and time lags. Salinity and phosphorous deficient soils are difficult problems to solve through conventional breeding because of “genetic load” or undesirable traits that accompany desirable ones during backcrossing. MAB, enabled by advances in genomics and molecular mapping is more precise and hence time-saving. Solving salinity and P-deficiency problems is important, regardless of whether MAB or CB is used, as the cumulative benefits are at least $220 million and as much as$4 billion over the next 25 years depending on the problem and country.Crop Production/Industries,

Agricultural growth and investment options for poverty reduction in Nigeria

This study uses an economy-wide, dynamic computable general equilibrium (DCGE) model to analyze the ability of growth in various agricultural subsectors to accelerate overall economic growth and reduce poverty in Nigeria over the next years (2009-17). In addition, econometric methods are used to assess growth requirements in agricultural public spending and the relationship between public services and farmers’ use of modern technology. The DCGE model results show that if certain agricultural subsectors can reach the growth targets set by the Nigerian government, the country will see 9.5 percent annual growth in agriculture and 8.0 percent growth of GDP over the next years. The national poverty rate will fall to 30.8 percent by 2017, more than halving the 1996 poverty rate of 65.6 percent and thereby accomplishing the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG1). This report emphasizes that in designing an agricultural strategy and prioritizing growth, it is important to consider the following four factors at the subsectoral level: (i) the size of a given subsector in the economy; (ii) the growth-multiplier effects occurring through linkages of the subsector with the rest of the economy; (iii) the subsector-led poverty reduction-growth elasticity; and (iv) the market opportunities and price effects for individual agricultural products. In analyzing the public investments that would be required to support a 9.5 percent annual growth in agriculture, this study first estimates the growth elasticity of public investments using historical spending and agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) growth data. The results show that a 1 percent increase in agricultural spending is associated with a 0.24 percent annual increase in agricultural TFP. With such low elasticity, agricultural investments must grow at 23.8 percent annually to support a 9.5 percent increase in agriculture. However, if the spending efficiency can be improved by 70 percent, the required agricultural investment growth becomes 13.6 percent per year. The study also finds that investments outside agriculture benefit growth in the agricultural sector. Thus, assessments of required growth in agricultural spending should include the indirect effects of nonagricultural investments and emphasize the importance of improving the efficiency of agricultural investments. To further show that efficiency in agricultural spending is critically important to agricultural growth, this study utilizes household-level data to empirically show that access to agricultural services has a significantly positive effect on the use of modern agricultural inputs.Agricultural growth, agricultural investments, agricultural services, Development strategies, Dynamic Computable General Equilibrium (DCGE), low elasticity, market opportunities, Millennium Development Goals (MDG), modern agricultural inputs, nonagricultural investments, Poverty reduction, Public investments, Total factor productivity (TFP),

Economic impact analysis of marker-assisted breeding for tolerance to salinity and phosphorous deficiency in rice

PRIFPRI3DSG

A 2006 Social Accounting Matrix for Nigeria: Methodology and Results

The 2006 Nigeria SAM is a comprehensive, economy-wide data framework, representing the structure of the Nigerian economy; the links among production activities, income distribution, consumption of goods/services, savings and investment, and foreign trade of the economic agents in year 2006. This 2006 Nigeria SAM is a 61 sector square matrix table with the column and row beginning with activities account, followed by commodities account and thereafter accounts for the economic agent in the Nigerian economy. Each cell in the matrix represents the flow of economic activities in monetary terms from a column account (expenditure or outflow) to a row account (income or inflow). Also, each activity and commodity account begins with letter 'a' and 'œc' respectively. This 2006 SAM was built for the dynamic CGE (DCGE) model that examined the growth and investment options available in the agricultural sector for reducing poverty in Nigeria, and was an integral part of the Agricultural Policy Support Facilites activities for strengthening evidence-based policymaking in Nigeria. Given the agricultural policy analysis focus of the SAM and DCGE model, 34 sector of the SAM are under agriculture and included key cash and food crops as well as livestock sub-sector. The 2006 Nigeria SAM also includes 12 manufacturing (such as beef, textiles, and wood products); 2 mining sector (including crude petroleum and natural gas); and 13 service sectors (such as building and construction, electricity and water, and hotels and restaurants). While the total number of sector for the SAM is 61, the commodities account is 62 as fertilizer was treated as commodity rather than activity. The 2006 SAM data files comprise two worksheets; one for the SAM data and the other containing legend to the SAM data. The value for each of the cell entries is reported in naira million (2006 prices). The data used for building this SAM were obtained from various sources including but not limited to publications of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources (FMAWR). Data from an earlier SAM of the country developed by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 1995 are also used, and was balanced using the cross entropy estimation method. The SAM was built following the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) standard format (Lofgren et al. 2001)

Economic Impact Analysis of Marker-Assisted Breeding in Rice

The benefits of developing and releasing salinity-tolerant and phosphorous-deficiency-tolerant rice in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and the Philippines were estimated for marker-assisted breeding as compared to conventional breeding using economic surplus analysis. Marker-assisted breeding is estimated to save at least 2 to 3 years in the breeding cycle and result in incremental benefits over 25 years in the range of $300 to$800 million depending on the country, stress, and time lags. Salinity and phosphorous deficient soils are difficult problems to solve through conventional breeding because of “genetic load” or undesirable traits that accompany desirable ones during backcrossing. MAB, enabled by advances in genomics and molecular mapping is more precise and hence time-saving. Solving salinity and P-deficiency problems is important, regardless of whether MAB or CB is used, as the cumulative benefits are at least $220 million and as much as$4 billion over the next 25 years depending on the problem and country

Assessing agricultural potential in South Sudan – A spatial analysis method

PRIFPRI4DSGD; EPT