Impact and returns on investment of mungbean research and development in Myanmar

Lutz Depenbusch,Teresa Sequeros,Ramakrishnan Madhavan Nair,Tun Shwe,Pepijn Schreinemachers

doi:10.1186/s40066-020-00260-y

Abstract

BackgroundThere is a need for better evidence for the impact of plant breeding research on nutrient-rich crops such as pulses to guide policy-making and investment. Mungbean (Vigna radiata (L). Wilczek) is one of the major pulses of South and Southeast Asia and makes an important contribution to food security and agricultural sustainability. The objective of this study is to quantify impact of and returns on investment from international mungbean breeding research for Myanmar.MethodsThis study applies the economic surplus model, which is a widely applied method to quantify the economic impact of agricultural technology adoption at the aggregate level. Sensitivity analysis is used to test some of the key assumptions underlying the method. All data come from secondary sources. Estimates of economic impact are combined with investment costs to quantify returns on investment.ResultsFour mungbean varieties coming out of international agricultural research and released by the national agricultural system of Myanmar created aggregate economic gains of USD 1.4 billion from 1980 to 2016 and this is projected to increase to USD 3.7 billion by 2030. International donors and the Myanmar government invested about USD 5 million in the country’s mungbean research and development over this period. The average dollar invested generated USD 92 in economic gains up to 2016 and this is expected to increase to USD 181 by 2030. The internal rate of return is 27%. There is a 20-year time lag between start of investment and start of economic benefits.ConclusionsInternational research into mungbean improvement led by the World Vegetable Center has created tremendous economic impact for Myanmar, most of it accruing to smallholder farm households and laborers contributing to the mungbean harvest. The unconditional sharing of plant genetic resources between national agricultural research systems in Asia was a key contributor to the success. It is important that this culture of sharing is maintained. The finding that agricultural research investment in mungbean gives high returns supports the case for diversifying investments into nutrient-rich crops to address Asia’s and the world’s nutritional and environmental challenges.

Highlights

There is a need for better evidence for the impact of plant breeding research on nutrient-rich crops such as pulses to guide policy-making and investment
Adoption improved mungbean varieties The cumulative diffusion curve shows that 46% (556,265 ha) of the mungbean area in 2016 was planted to varieties that resulted from international mungbean research (Fig. 1)
This is much lower than the 77% estimated by Schreinemachers et al [34], but here we use the official data because these are available for several years and could be considered as conservative estimates of the actual adoption

Summary

Introduction

There is a need for better evidence for the impact of plant breeding research on nutrient-rich crops such as pulses to guide policy-making and investment. Increased investments in plant breeding research of nutrient-rich crops such as pulses is important for food security and environmental sustainability [7, 9, 14]. Guiding such investment requires a sound understanding of the impact of past investments, but there is a lack of evidence for the impact of plant breeding research on minor crops such as pulses as most previous studies focused on staple food grains.

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Conclusion