Abstract
The advent of improved lentil varieties (ILVs) in the mid-1990s solved the disease problem which almost halted lentil production in Bangladesh. Levels of adoption of ILVs have been documented in the literature, but little is known about their impacts. Applying an instrumental variables regression to data collected from a sample of 1,694 lentil plots and DNA fingerprinting for varietal identification, this study provides estimates of the plot-level impacts of adoption of ILVs in Bangladesh. Model results show that adoption of ILVs is associated with 14.3% (181.14 kg/ha) higher yields and 17.23% (US$169.44/ha) higher gross margins. Since 45% of lentil area is under ILVs, they generated over 8.77 tones (6%) more supply of lentils from domestic sources, saving the country US$8.22 million in imports in 2015 alone. By investing in the generation and scaling of ILVs, Bangladesh and other South Asian countries with similar agro-ecologies can increase production and decrease dependency on lentil imports.
Highlights
BackgroundGlobal efforts for documenting the contribution of research to agricultural development, food security, poverty alleviation and other outcomes have mainly focused on major cereal food crops such as wheat, rice, and maize [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
Over 99% of lentil area in western Bangladesh is cultivated with short-duration improved lentil varieties (ILVs), which are grown between irrigated rice crops and on unirrigated lands during the dry season [8]
We argue that this support, because it was provided in years past, does not have direct effect on current outcomes—yield and gross margins per ha except through its effect on adoption
Summary
Global efforts for documenting the contribution of research to agricultural development, food security, poverty alleviation and other outcomes have mainly focused on major cereal food crops such as wheat, rice, and maize [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. Over 99% of lentil area in western Bangladesh is cultivated with short-duration improved lentil varieties (ILVs), which are grown between irrigated rice crops and on unirrigated lands during the dry season [8]. Plot-level evaluation of economic benefits of adoption of rotation, inter cropping, and relay cropping, especially associated with the introduction of ILVs, is best achieved by considering all benefits and costs from all crops during the entire cropping cycle [16] While such an analysis is a subject of future research, due to data limitations, the analysis in this study is limited to only plot-level impacts on lentil yields and gross margins. In 2015, only eight were cultivated by farmers and these covered over 99% of national lentil area [8] Due to their shorter duration, the introduction of the ILVs has made rice-based relay cropping more attractive. Production of lentils has the benefit of enhancing agrobiodiversity by breaking the pattern of rice mono-cropping and spreading labor and land use into previously idle periods
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