Adoption Of Modern Varieties Research Articles

Has the introduction of modern rice varieties changed rice genetic diversity in a high-altitude region of Nepal?

We surveyed the uptake of three modern rice varieties by farmers in high-altitude villages in the Kaski district of Nepal and found that their uptake had displaced some traditional landraces in the district. The three varieties, Machhapuchhre-3 (M-3), Machhapuchhre-9 (M-9) and Lumle 2, were developed using client-oriented, participatory plant breeding methods and the first was introduced to farmers in 1996. By 2004 up to 60% of the land area was used to grow these modern varieties. Molecular markers (SSR) were used to assay levels of genetic diversity to test if adoption of modern varieties in the place of landraces had changed genetic diversity. The modern varieties were found to contain diverse alleles with a high proportion from the local parent variety, Chhomrong Dhan. We found a high level of allelic richness in the landraces, and although seven had been dropped in favour of the modern varieties, other diverse landraces were still being cultivated by farmers in the study villages on up to 40% of the rice area. Genetic diversity may be maintained even when landraces are displaced by modern varieties. Using a model we found that the partial replacement of landraces increased genetic diversity if the modern varieties were adopted on up to 65% of the area. Only above these levels did overall diversity decline.

Trade-offs between on-farm varietal diversity and highly client-oriented breeding — a case study of upland rice in India

On-farm varietal diversity is now highest in marginal agricultural environments because, unlike the case in more favourable areas, modern varieties have not been a sufficiently attractive option for farmers to replace their landraces. However, the continued survival of landraces on farm is dependent on the continuing failure of plant breeding to provide better alternatives. Highly client-oriented breeding can produce suitable modern varieties for areas that were dominated by landraces. We examine here the case of the adoption of two upland rice varieties in three states in eastern India, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa, where our surveys had confirmed low adoption of modern varieties in the upland ecosystem. The two new upland varieties were readily accepted by farmers who rapidly adopted them on large proportions of their land. On-farm diversity is maintained by the need to trade-off among varieties but once a variety with overall superiority was found this incentive was removed. The new varieties from the client-oriented breeding did not have weaknesses that farmers had to trade-off against their landraces so they were more likely to replace them. They also replaced older modern varieties. Farmers had previously maintained them along with landraces because they had to trade-off the higher yield of Kalinga III against the more stable yield of landraces or the higher yield of Vandana against the higher gain quality of the landraces. Only mean count per household could be used to test the significance of the differences between individual years. In all states, this revealed a significant reduction in landrace diversity with the adopting farmers when the addition of the two new varieties was not considered. Trends across years for mean varietal count, total count and Shannon–Wiener index showed a significant decline in Orissa, irrespective of whether the two new varieties were included in the analysis or not. In Jharkhand there was a significant decline only for mean count when the new varieties were not included. In Orissa, it was possible to test if rare landraces were as readily replaced as more common ones. Landrace replacement was unmitigated by increasing rarity yet the most rare landraces have the highest priority for genetic conservation. Some landraces were completely replaced by the farmers in the sample despite a diverse variety portfolio being a risk-reducing strategy in a region where there is a high risk of crop failure. There was little environmental heterogeneity in the marginal, drought-prone areas to slow this decline. The new varieties had an impact on the farming system because sometimes farmers brought additional upland into cultivation. They also introduced these varieties into more favourable, medium land. The strategy of releasing two new upland varieties met with some success in maintaining diversity.

ADOPTION AND PRODUCTIVITY IMPACT OF MODERN RICE VARIETIES IN BANGLADESH

Technological progress has helped Bangladesh to achieve self-sufficiency in rice production in 2001 from a heavy import-dependence, despite doubling of population and a reduction in arable land since its independence in 1971. As the adoption of modern varieties (MV) of rice is reaching a plateau, particularly for the irrigated ecosystem, an important issue is whether the research system will be able to sustain the growth of production. The present paper addresses the following questions: (i) to what extent farmers have been replacing the old MV with the new MV, and (ii) what has been the impact of the variety replacement on productivity and profitability. How crucial is the continuous research and release of improved rice varieties toward improving farm production and income for farmers comes out as a clear message to policymakers from the current paper.

THE IMPACT OF GREEN REVOLUTION ON RICE PRODUCTION IN VIETNAM

The current paper reviewed the development of the Green Revolution in Vietnam, using long-term regional yield and modern variety adoption statistics, as well as household data collected in 1996 and 2003. The present study indicates that the Green Revolution began in irrigated favorable areas and spread to the less favorable areas in Vietnam such as in other Asian countries. What is unique in Vietnam is that although the Green Revolution ended in the mid-1980s in the Philippines and Indonesia, it has still been sustained as of 2003. Our analyses revealed that such growth had been supported by continuous improvements of modern varieties by regional research institutes. The varieties imported from China have contributed to the Green Revolution in northern Vietnam and those developed by the International Rice Research Institute in southern Vietnam. The national agricultural research systems have also played a critically important role in developing location-specific and appropriate technologies.

Impacts of breeding on international collaborative wheat improvement

For over 40 years a collaborative network of publicly funded international wheat scientists has made a significant contribution to food security in the developing world. Thousands of modern wheat varieties (MVs) have been released for use in both favourable and marginal environments on well over 50 million hectares. The yield increases associated with genetic improvement in yield potential and adaptation to biotic and abiotic stresses are well documented. Millions of small-scale farmers in the developing world have benefited. While this so-called ‘Green Revolution’ displaced landraces in favour of more productive MVs, these and other genetic resources, held in trust by international organizations, have been utilized to improve the inherent genetic diversity of modern varieties. Furthermore, the result of increased yields reduced the need to bring natural ecosystems under cultivation, by as much as a billion hectares.Although international wheat breeding has its origins in the 1940s, recognition of a common scientific basis of agricultural problems worldwide was highlighted by the creation of International Agricultural Research Centres (IARCs) which included the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) established in 1965. This grew into a larger network called the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) now comprising 15 IARCs, including the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) established in Syria in 1977, another key player in the international wheat and barley breeding network. Two of the major coordination responsibilities of CIMMYT are maintaining the world collection of wheat genetic resources – a public good protected by international treaty – and the facilitation of the International Wheat Nurseries.After the initial impact of the Green Revolution in high production zones through exploitation of Rht-B1 and Rht-D1 dwarfing genes in conjunction with disease resistance, international breeding encompassed more challenging environments through, for example, international shuttle breeding between Brazil and Mexico to overcome problems associated with acid soils that restricted adoption of MVs. Another example is drought, which affects at least 30 million ha of wheat in the developing world. The approach focused initially on exploiting the inherent yield potential and disease resistance of MVs and later combined this with new stress-adaptive traits from wild wheat ancestors through wide crossing techniques. Adoption of modern varieties has increased substantially in drier areas between 1990 and 1997. In all environments, possibly the greatest threat to productivity is disease, especially those caused by fungal pathogens. International wheat breeding has placed great emphasis on genetic control of disease since resource-poor farmers generally lack the means to control diseases chemically.

Farmer seed enterprises: A sustainable approach to seed delivery?

A major reason for the low adoption of modern varieties of seed among small-scale farmers in developing countries is the inability of formal, centralized seed production systems to meet their complex and diverse seed requirements. Drawing on experiences in Uganda with the common bean, the paper proposes seed production by farmer seed enterprises (FSEs) as a strategy for meeting dual objectives: to sustainably distribute and promote modern crop varieties and to establish a regular source of “clean” seed of either local or modern varieties. It reports on lessons learned from the Ugandan experience and offers a conceptual framework and guidelines for establishing economically and institutionally sustainable FSEs. While FSEs offer a potentially sustainable solution to the problem of seed supply, the challenge of implementing and scaling up this approach in eastern and southern Africa remains formidable. Collaborative linkages need to be fostered between farmers, researchers, agro-enterprise specialists, NGOs, and the formal seed industry. Seed policy reforms need to be implemented and more client-oriented research systems must be institutionalized.

Estimating the benefits of plant breeding research: methodological issues and practical challenges

AbstractImpact assessment studies consistently show that the benefits generated by plant breeding are large, positive and widely distributed. Numerous case studies have concluded that investment in plant breeding research generates attractive rates of return compared to alternative investment opportunities, that welfare gains resulting from the adoption of modern varieties (MVs) reach both favoured and marginal environments, and that benefits are broadly shared by producers and consumers. But just how reliable are the results of studies that estimate the benefits of plant breeding research? This article reviews methods used to estimate the benefits of plant breeding research and discusses theoretical and empirical issues that often receive inadequate attention in applied impact assessment work. Our objective is not to question the validity of the theoretical frameworks commonly used to estimate the benefits of plant breeding research, but rather to examine problems that can arise when the widely accepted theoretical frameworks are used for empirical analysis. Most of these problems can be grouped into three basic categories: (1) problems associated with measuring adoption and diffusion of MVs, (2) problems associated with estimating benefits attributable to adoption of MVs, and (3) problems associated with assigning credit among the various plant breeding programmes that participated in developing the MVs.

Estimating the benefits of plant breeding research: methodological issues and practical challenges

Impact assessment studies consistently show that the benefits generated by plant breeding are large, positive and widely distributed. Numerous case studies have concluded that investment in plant breeding research generates attractive rates of return compared to alternative investment opportunities, that welfare gains resulting from the adoption of modern varieties (MVs) reach both favoured and marginal environments, and that benefits are broadly shared by producers and consumers. But just how reliable are the results of studies that estimate the benefits of plant breeding research? This article reviews methods used to estimate the benefits of plant breeding research and discusses theoretical and empirical issues that often receive inadequate attention in applied impact assessment work. Our objective is not to question the validity of the theoretical frameworks commonly used to estimate the benefits of plant breeding research, but rather to examine problems that can arise when the widely accepted theoretical frameworks are used for empirical analysis. Most of these problems can be grouped into three basic categories: (1) problems associated with measuring adoption and diffusion of MVs, (2) problems associated with estimating benefits attributable to adoption of MVs, and (3) problems associated with assigning credit among the various plant breeding programmes that participated in developing the MVs.

Influences of Main Factors on the Growth of Rice Production and the Adoption of Modern Varieties in Vietnam : A case study in outskirts o Hanoi

Influences of Main Factors on the Growth of Rice Production and the Adoption of Modern Varieties in Vietnam : A case study in outskirts o Hanoi

The Future of Cereal Yields and Prices: Implications for Research and Policy

SUMMARY Crop yields experienced significant increases in much of the world over the last 30 years, in large part due to investment in agricultural research, irrigation, and rural infrastructure. However, recent declines in yield growth are major causes of concern for future food security. Especially in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa the future prospects for food production are problematic. Both regions must meet strong growth in food demand–driven mainly by income growth in Asia and by population growth in sub-Saharan Africa. The production challenges in the two regions are fundamentally different: much of Asia is facing post-Green Revolution challenges of how to sustain crop yield growth following widespread adoption of modern varieties while dealing with environmental degradation in some high intensity crop production systems. Sub-Saharan Africa has yet to experience a Green Revolution, and must boost crop yield growth in the face of less favorable agroclimatic environments than in Green Revolution breadba...

Modern rice technology and regional wage differentials in the Philippines

ABSTRACTFear has been widely expressed that the modern rice varieties have created large disparities in regional income distribution, as the productivity gap between favorable and unfavorable rice‐production environments widened due to differential technology adoption throughout South and Southeast Asia over the last two decades.Technology affects the income of farm population directly through its effects on productivity and factor use, and indirectly through its effect on factor prices. In particular, the ultimate distributional impact of modern varieties will critically depend on the interregional labor‐market adjustments through migration in response to regional wage differentials created by the differential technology adoption, since labor is the main resource of the majority of the rural population.We studied favorable and unfavorable rice‐growing villages in the Philippines, and found that adoption of modern varieties during the 1970s was positively related to population growth rate. Contrary to popular belief, no association was observed between wage rates and adoption of modern varieties as of 1986. These findings support the hypothesis that the differential adoption of modern rice varieties induced interregional labor migration toward equalization of wage income across different production environments.

Modern rice technology and regional wage differentials in the Philippines

Fear has been widely expressed that the modern rice varieties have created large disparities in regional income distribution, as the productivity gap between favorable and unfavorable rice-production environments widened due to differential technology adoption throughout South and Southeast Asia over the last two decades. Technology affects the income of farm population directly through its effects on productivity and factor use, and indirectly through its effect on factor prices. In particular, the ultimate distributional impact of modern varieties will critically depend on the interregional labor-market adjustments through migration in response to regional wage differentials created by the differential technology adoption, since labor is the main resource of the majority of the rural population. We studied favorable and unfavorable rice-growing villages in the Philippines, and found that adoption of modern varieties during the 1970s was positively related to population growth rate. Contrary to popular belief, no association was observed between wage rates and adoption of modern varieties as of 1986. These findings support the hypothesis that the differential adoption of modern rice varieties induced interregional labor migration toward equalization of wage income across different production environments.

Risk, Efficiency, and the Adoption of Modern Crop Varieties: Evidence from the Philippines

Efficiency among farmers of less developed countries has been the focus of numerous studies since T. W. Schultz hypothesized that farmers in developing agricultures are "poor but efficient."'1 A growing body of literature supports Schultz's argument that farmers in developing agricultures have low incomes, not because they use their resources inefficiently, but because they lack the technology and resources they need to realize higher productivity and, thus, higher incomes. A high priority in agricultural development assistance since the 1960s has been the generation of technology that would enable farmers to increase their productivity. Much research has been devoted to the causes of low agricultural productivity and the longer-term productivity gains that may be forthcoming from modern technology, but less attention has been devoted to the process of technology adoption by low-income farmers. As noted in the recent survey of adoption of agricultural innovations by G. Feder, R. E. Just, and D. Zilberman, there have been efforts to model adoption in the context of risk, but there is a dearth of empirical evidence on the ways that farmers respond over time as a new production technology is introduced in a risky environment.2 In this article we address the empirical analysis of technical efficiency as farmers adopt new production technology, taking into account production risk and learning. We utilize recently developed efficiency criteria applicable when production is risky and implement these criteria using an approximation to a representative farmer's decision model.3 Pooled time series and cross-sectional data collected by the International Rice Research Institute are used to investigate the