Returns to food and agricultural R&D investments in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1975-2014

dc.contributor.authorPardey, Philip G.
dc.contributor.authorAndrade, Robert S.
dc.contributor.authorHurley, Terrance M.
dc.contributor.authorRao, Xudong
dc.contributor.authorLiebenberg, Frikkie
dc.date.accessioned2017-02-07T11:52:16Z
dc.date.available2017-02-07T11:52:16Z
dc.date.issued2016-12
dc.description.abstractResearch-enabled growth in agricultural productivity is pivotal to sub-Saharan Africa’s overall economic growth prospects. Yet, investments in research and development (R&D) targeted to many national food and agricultural economies throughout Africa are fragile and faltering. To gain insight into what could be driving this trend, this article updates, summarizes and reassesses the published evidence on the returns to African agricultural R&D. Based on a compilation of 113 studies published between 1975 and 2014 spanning 25 countries, the reported internal rates of return (IRRs) to food and agricultural research conducted in or of direct consequence for sub-Saharan Africa averaged 42.3%py. In addition to the 376 IRR estimates, the corresponding 129 benefit-cost ratios (BCRs) averaged 30.1. Most (96.5%) of the returns-to-research evaluations are of publicly performed R&D, and the majority (87.6%) of the studies were published in the period 1990–2009. The large dispersion in the reported IRRs and BCRs makes it difficult to discern meaningful patterns in the evidence. Moreover, the distribution of IRRs is heavily (positively) skewed, such that the median value (35.0%py) is well below the mean, like it is for research done elsewhere in the world (mean 62.4%py; median 38.0%py). Around 78.5% of the evaluations relate to the commodity-specific consequences of agricultural research, while 5.5% report on the returns to an ‘‘all agriculture” aggregate. The weight of commodity-specific evaluation evidence is not especially congruent with the composition of agricultural production throughout Africa, nor, to the best that can be determined, the commodity orientation of public African agricultural R&D.en_ZA
dc.description.departmentAgricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Developmenten_ZA
dc.description.librarianhb2017en_ZA
dc.description.sponsorshipThe CGIAR’s Standing Panel on Impact Assessment, with additional support from the University of Minnesota’s Agricultural Experiment Station (Project Nos. MIN-14-061 and MIN-14-034), the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation by way of the HarvestChoice project.en_ZA
dc.description.urihttp://www.elsevier.com/locate/foodpolen_ZA
dc.identifier.citationPardey, PG, Andrade, RS, Hurley, TM, Rao, XD & Liebenberg, F 2016, 'Returns to food and agricultural R&D investments in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1975-2014', Food Policy, vol. 65, pp. 1-8.en_ZA
dc.identifier.issn0306-9192 (print)
dc.identifier.issn1873-5657 (online)
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2263/58899
dc.language.isoenen_ZA
dc.publisherElsevieren_ZA
dc.rights© 2016 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).en_ZA
dc.subjectInternal rates of returnen_ZA
dc.subjectBenefit-cost ratiosen_ZA
dc.subjectResearch and development (R&D)en_ZA
dc.subjectFood economyen_ZA
dc.subjectAgricultural economyen_ZA
dc.titleReturns to food and agricultural R&D investments in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1975-2014en_ZA
dc.typeArticleen_ZA

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