IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/eee/hagchp/6-68.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

An Assessment of the Impact of Agricultural Research in South Asia Since the Green Revolution

In: Handbook of Agricultural Economics

Author

Listed:
  • Hazell, Peter B.R.

Abstract

The post-Green Revolution period has seen profound changes in the economic situation in South Asia and evolving challenges for the agricultural R&D system. The priorities have changed from a narrow focus on the productivity of food grains to a need for more work on natural resources management and sustainability issues; increasing the productivity and quality of high-value crops, trees, and livestock; agricultural intensification in many less favored areas; more precise targeting of the problems of the poor, including enhancing the micronutrient content of food staples; and analysis of policy and institutional options for achieving more sustainable and pro-poor outcomes in the rural sector. This study draws on the available literature to assess how successful the agricultural R&D system has been in achieving these new goals in South Asia. Overall, it finds that the R&D system has responded well to these changing needs in terms of both budgetary allocations and the kinds of research that has been undertaken. Moreover, market liberalization has enabled a more diverse set of agents to engage in agricultural R&D, and private firms and NGOs have helped ensure that important research and extension needs have not been overlooked. Findings on the impact of this evolving research agenda are mixed. The economic returns to crop improvement research have remained high and well in excess of national discount rates. Public investments in crop improvement research have also given higher returns than most other public investments in rural areas. There is little credible evidence to suggest that these rates of return are declining over time. Agricultural R&D has also made important contributions to reducing poverty in South Asia, but it has done less well in reducing interhousehold and interregional inequities. The greatest impact on poverty has been obtained by lowering food prices, but this pathway might be less important in the future now that food prices are aligned more with border prices and food accounts for a smaller share of consumers' budgets. Also, given that agriculture now plays a relatively small part in the livelihoods of many marginal farmers in South Asia, questions arise about the efficacy of continuing to target agricultural R&D to their problems. Agricultural R&D has also been successful in addressing many of the environmental problems associated with agriculture, with a demonstrated potential for favorable impacts in farmers' fields. Yet the uptake of improved technologies and management practices that reduce environmental damage has been disappointing, particularly in intensively farmed areas. Finally, a large amount of policy research has been undertaken in South Asia since the GR, and case studies show favorable returns to policy research, though the conditions under which it leads to policy change are not well understood.

Suggested Citation

  • Hazell, Peter B.R., 2010. "An Assessment of the Impact of Agricultural Research in South Asia Since the Green Revolution," Handbook of Agricultural Economics, in: Robert Evenson & Prabhu Pingali (ed.), Handbook of Agricultural Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 68, pages 3469-3530, Elsevier.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:hagchp:6-68
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B7P5B-4X49J18-D/2/78181be3c13a5363672e8c4026a580aa
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alwang, Jeffrey & Gotor, Elisabetta & Thiele, Graham & Hareau, Guy & Jaleta, Moti & Chamberlin, Jordan, 2019. "Pathways from research on improved staple crop germplasm to poverty reduction for smallholder farmers," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 16-27.
    2. UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa & Ayodele Odusola, "undated". "Agriculture, Rural Poverty and Income Inequality in sub-Saharan Africa," UNDP Africa Policy Notes 2017-05, United Nations Development Programme, Regional Bureau for Africa.
    3. repec:rac:ecchap:2017-05 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. repec:ags:bdbjaf:279932 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Odusola, Ayodele, 2017. "Agriculture, Rural Poverty and Income Inequality in sub-Saharan Africa," UNDP Africa Economists Working Papers 266998, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    6. Channing Arndt & Finn Tarp, 2017. "Aid, Environment and Climate Change," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 285-303, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    agricultural research and development; productivity results; social effects; environmental impacts; policy research;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
    • Q16 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - R&D; Agricultural Technology; Biofuels; Agricultural Extension Services
    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:hagchp:6-68. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/bookseriesdescription.cws_home/BS_HE/description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.