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For further information contact: Douglas White
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New Varieties Leave a Big Footprint
on World Agriculture
 A
recent study of the impact of CIAT’s crop improvement
research, covering the past three decades, estimates the cumulative
global benefits of Center-related varieties at just under
US$8.7 billion (1990 dollars).
CIAT economists Nancy Johnson and Douglas Pachico examined the Center’s four
mandated crops: rice, beans, cassava, and tropical forages. For their analysis they
defined "CIAT-related varieties" as genetic material from the Center’s
germplasm bank, crosses made by CIAT, and crosses made by national research programs using
CIAT parents or grandparents. Theirs was one of a series of studies being conducted on
commodity research impacts by the Future Harvest centers (further
details).
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Calculating the Benefits of
Germplasm Royalties
 Developing
countries increasingly are demanding compensation for providing much of the raw genetic
material used in modern plant breeding: farmer-bred crop varieties and their wild
relatives. The Rio Convention on Biodiversity is one international mechanism that
recognizes the legitimacy of such claims by declaring that plant genetic resources are the
property of the country of origin.
A recent CIAT study projected the financial costs and benefits of introducing a global
system of royalty payments on sales of crop seed. Common beans were used as the example in
this modeling exercise. The income and payments were calculated so as to permit
comparisons between regions of the world and between selected Latin American
countries—to see who would win and who would lose (further
details).
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Agropastoral Systems for the
Savannas: Looking to the Future
 A CIAT study during
2000 looked ahead, projecting the potential economic benefits of disseminating
agropastoral technology in the South American savannas.
In recent years farmers have become concerned about the need to counteract widespread
pasture degradation and declining rice yields. One set of solutions promoted by CIAT is to
integrate cropping with cattle production based on better forage grasses and
fertility-boosting legumes. In fact, a trend in this direction is already under way in
this vast ecosystem, which covers 243 million hectares in Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, and
Bolivia
The CIAT cost-benefit analysis concludes that a rotational system of rice production
and improved pastures would generate substantially greater economic benefits than rice
monocropping or straight cattle production on either improved or native pastures.
According to CIAT economist Albert Gierend, who conducted the study, such an agropastoral
system would, over 30 years, provide total estimated benefits of just under $40 billion to
the four savanna countries. At the same time, soil structure and fertility will improve,
thus providing an important environmental bonus to this final frontier of agricultural
expansion in South America.
Additional information can be found in the Web sites of CIAT's Rice
Improvement and Tropical
Forages projects.
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 Special Issue of Food Policy on the
CIAT Poverty Workshop
To see the Editorial (with
permission from Elsevier Science): Food
Policy, Special Issue, Vol. 25 No. 4
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The Impact of CIAT Participation in the
Development of Bean Cultivars in Latin America
Oswaldo Voysest Voysest
 The present work seeks to evaluate the impact of
the participation of CIAT in this combined work of providing the farmers of Latin America
with improved bean varieties. The year 1980 was chosen as starting point of this study
taking into consideration that CIAT began the orderly distribution of germplasm in 1976.
The genetic material provided by CIAT came
from many sources, advanced lines, segregating populations from its own breeders,
promising accessions from the germplasm bank, commercial varieties and promising advanced
lines from national and iregional programs. How
and why this improved germplasm benefited farmers of Latin America is the theme of this
paper.
 (547 Kb) To
see the document
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Early Adoption of Arachis pintoi in the
Humid Tropics: the Case of Dual-purpose Livestock Systems in Caquetá, Colombia
L. Rivas and F. Holmann
Abstract
 The early adoption of
the legume Arachis pintoi was studied in the department of Caquetá located in
Colombia’s Amazon region. Data came from 174 farmers randomly surveyed within the
area of influence of Nestlé, a multinational milk-processing company. In addition, 52
farmers who had already adopted Arachis were surveyed separately to study their
experiences, difficulties, and prospects with the legume. Results indicated that livestock
activity is undergoing dynamic intensification. Since 1986, milk production per lactation
has increased by 31%, cow fertility by 5%, herd size by 18%, and the area sown to improved
pastures by 165%. Current adoption rate of Arachis is about 9.2%, with an
estimated 3000 ha already planted. Two-thirds of farmers who had adopted Arachis
said they would double, in the next year, the average area sowed (9.6 ha/farm). Adopters
tended to have larger farms and to have invested twice the capital than did non-adopters.
The cost of seed for both grass and legume accounted for 40-52% of total establishment
costs, making seed quality decisive in guaranteeing success. To promote Arachis,
more information on the plant and its management in association with grasses must be
disseminated. Mechanisms should also be sought to reduce establishment costs.
Key words: Milk production, pasture, Arachis pintoi, and adoption.
To
see the document |
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Social Capital, Collective Action, and Community
Agro-enterprise Development: Understanding the Linkages that Contribute to Poverty
Alleviation and Sustainable Natural Resource Management
 International
Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT); Center for Livestock and Agricultural Studies (CEGA);
Corporacion Colombiana Internacional (CCI)
Funded by the System wide Program on Collective Action and Property
Rights (CAPRi)
Abstract
The process of agro-industrialization is transforming agriculture and
rural communities in many parts of Latin America. In terms of regional and national
agricultural competitiveness, these changes have often been beneficial, however their
impact on poverty and the environment has been mixed. Policy has a critical role to play
if agro-industrialization is to contribute to inclusionary growth rather than exacerbate
existing inequality. Past policies to support the participation of small farmers and the
rural poor in high value production and value added processing often focused on overcoming
financial and technical barriers. However human and social factors may be equally
important in helping the rural poor integrate into complex, technically-demanding, and
informationally-intensive product transformation chains. (More
information) |
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