Managing Global Genetic Resources Agricultural Crop Issues and Policies (1993) / Chapter Skim
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13. Genetic Resources: Assessing Economic Value
13. Genetic Resources: Assessing Economic Value
Pages 303-320
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From page 303... ...
This chapter reviews evidence that provides general support for the proposition that investment in the collection, preservation, and management of genetic resources to support crop improvement is economically sound. Genetic resources are valued as public consumption goods in the same way that scenic lakes and mountains are.
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From page 304... ...
Hedonic pricing methods can be used to relate the value of such improvements to the genetic resources and other activities that were used to produce them. In; this chapter, hedonic pricing methods are used to estimate the value of rice germplasm resources in a specific geographic setting as producer goods; their value as consumer goods is not estimated.
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From page 305... ...
A firm might, for example, collect landraces and wild species of rice, identify particular traits and characteristics, then seek to sell particular germplasm resources to plant breeders. However, once the genetic resources (via seeds or other reproducible materials)
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From page 306... ...
The recombinations may represent years of systematic breeding work and development. Such recombinations are usually based on a small subset of the naturally occurring germplasm resources and usually form the parent materials in breeding programs.
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From page 307... ...
have described this process for rice. National breeding programs may maintain larger numbers of germplasm resources (landraces and wild species)
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From page 308... ...
For example, if it was found that improved crop varieties were essentially based on recombinations of existing advanced materials and that no new germplasm resources were included in successful varieties, this would indicate that there would be little value to expanding existing collections of landrace and wild species. On the other hand, if new germplasm material is being incorporated into improved varieties, this would indicate that there is value to maintaining germplasm resource collections.
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From page 309... ...
About 85,000 of these are in a long-term storage facility at IRRI. Seeds of these germplasm resources are catalogued according to their agronomic and genetic characteristics, and they are kept under conditions of low temperature and humidity (Chang, 1976, 1987~.
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From page 310... ...
Varietal Releases A steadily increasing trend in varietal releases was seen from 1965 to 1975, with approximately constant releases since then (Table 13-1~. There were 27 rice varieties developed originally at IRRI and 6 varieties developed in other foreign breeding programs that have been distributed evenly over time.
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From page 311... ...
Foreign germplasm is found in almost all varieties released in India, even though the country is the source of a large share of the world's rice germplasm resources. (IRRI is the major source of introduced germplasm.)
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From page 312... ...
These data show that the landrace content for Indian varieties has been expanding (and, by inference, that if TABLE 13-2 First Appearance of Various Landraces in Indian Rice Pedigrees Between 1965 and 1986 Landraces Appearing in Pedigrees of Released Varieties for the First Time Total Percent of Number, Total 1965 to Year Number Released 1986 1965 1 (0.6)
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From page 313... ...
Regression Analysis of Data The price evaluation analysis used entails a statistical regression relating a measure of varietal improvement in farmers' fields to factors expected to be associated with varietal improvement as described above. District-level measurements of rice yields are available for India.
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From page 314... ...
Having shown that rice varietal improvement did contribute to rice productivity, the second-stage analysis can be justified. In this stage, variables measuring the genetic content of varieties actually planted by farmers were substituted in the analysis for the variable representing genetic content of modern varieties.
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From page 315... ...
These germplasm content variables were defined for five clusters of variables: source of breeding materials, varietal characteristics, parental origin, pedigree complexity, and landrace content. Separate regression analyses were then undertaken for each cluster to estimate the impact of each cluster of genetic variables on yield.
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From page 316... ...
The calculation indicates that yields were higher for all of India by 5.6 percent than they would have been had only the germplasm resources present at the time of the original green revolution been available to breeders. The total increase from modern varieties in the period was 13.4 percent.
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From page 317... ...
Thus in 1975, the availability of the genetic resources enabled this contribution of 0.5 percent of Indian rice production (worth US$50 million in 1990 dollars) to be realized 20 years later (9 years from initial breeding to varietal release plus 11 years to full adaption)
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From page 318... ...
. The values can be compared with the current annual costs of rice germplasm maintenance of perhaps US$10 million.
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From page 319... ...
The discounted range of values for the ratio of annual costs of maintaining and operating the genetic research system to the value of the commodity for which the system is economically justified is thus .0029 to .0074 (.002 x 1.486 = .0029 and .005 x 1.486 = .0074~. How do actual costs to value ratios compare with this range?
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From page 320... ...
The improvement of crops and livestock genetic resources is increasingly an international matter, because most valuable genetic resources cross international borders. International agricultural research centers, such as those of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, and other agencies are critical institutions because of their role in facilitating this transfer.
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