Browsing by Subject "Economic analysis"

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Micronutrient malnutrition and the impact of modern plant breeding on public health in India: How cost-effective is biofortification?
(2006) Stein, Alexander J.; Qaim, Matin
Millions of people worldwide suffer from micronutrient malnutrition or ?hidden hunger?. The related deficiencies can have devastating consequences for the life, health and well-being of the affected individuals, but they may also perpetuate a vicious circle of undernutrition, low economic productivity and poverty. Hence, in many developing countries vitamin and mineral deficiencies are public health problems of primary concern. While economic development and rising incomes can only address undernutrition in the long run, conventional approaches also have weaknesses of their own. Therefore, ?biofortification? may be a promising intervention. The idea is to breed food crops for higher micronutrient content, which can be done through cross-breeding or genetic engineering. Targeting staple crops that fortify themselves has several advantages: the enriched crops simply follow the normal food chain and are eaten by the poor in bigger quantities. Moreover, the underlying germplasm of micronutrient-rich crops only needs to be developed once and can then be used around the world ? and farmers can grow and reproduce biofortified crops year on year and share the micronutrient-dense seeds. Therefore, the initial investments in R&D of biofortification can be followed by a continuous stream of benefits that accumulates over time and space, which suggests that biofortification can be a very cost-effective intervention. However, a more rigorous and comprehensive assessment of biofortification is still outstanding. This book has been written to narrow this knowledge gap and to offer a sound basis for future research and policy decisions regarding biofortification ? covering both, crops that are produced through conventional breeding and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). For this ex ante evaluation of biofortification, an impact assessment of five different crops (iron-rich rice and wheat, zinc-rich rice and wheat and beta-carotene-rich Golden Rice) has been done for India to determine their effectiveness. The main contribution of this study lies in the development of a methodology that reproduces the whole sequence of effects between the cultivation of the micronutrient-rich crops and their ultimate health impacts, taking into account various micronutrient levels in the crops, different rates of adoption and acceptance, and the ensuing improvements in individual nutrition status. To this end in this book the disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) framework has been refined and applied to determine the disaggregate burden of disease of iron deficiency anaemia (IDA), zinc deficiency (ZnD) and vitamin A deficiency (VAD) in India. The assessment of the potential impact of the biofortified crops has been complemented by an economic evaluation, because mere effectiveness is a poor guide to policy making when resources are limited. Therefore, a cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) and a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) have been carried out for each of the crops to determine their efficiency and their overall social profitability. The attributable costs of the R&D for the crops as well as the costs for related dissemination and extension activities within India have been juxtaposed to the expected health benefits. The resulting cost-effectiveness measure ($/DALY saved) has been compared to alternative micronutrient programmes and to benchmarks of international organisations for assessing public health interventions. By attaching a minimum value to each DALY saved, the benefits of biofortification were translated into monetary terms to calculate a lower bound of the social rates of return of the crops. These economic indicators could then be compared to those of other agricultural technologies. While conventionally bred biofortified crops are less contentious, genetically modified crops (GM crops) and, thus, the transgenic Golden Rice are controversially discussed in the ongoing debate about plant biotechnology. Therefore, related issues are discussed in more depth in special sections of this book, where the validity of common claims about Golden Rice is scrutinized. The study concludes that biofortification has the potential to help control vitamin and mineral deficiencies in a lasting and sustainable way ? even though the commitment and the support of key stakeholders may be necessary to achieve its full impact. The various economic analysis have also shown that biofortification promises to be a very cost-effective, efficient and socially profitable intervention, both if compared to alternative public health measures and if compared to other agricultural innovations. Nevertheless, to control micronutrient deficiencies, the importance of a more comprehensive strategy is underlined; in such a strategy other micronutrient interventions like targeted supplementation, fortification, dietary diversification, nutrition education and poverty reduction may all have a role to play.
Social and economic analysis of the organic sector in Bhutan
(2024) Tshotsho; Lippert, Christian
As in some other low-income countries, organic agriculture (OA) has been introduced in Bhutan and is increasingly being promoted by the state with a top-down approach. While the potential of OA to provide ecosystem services and empower smallholder farmers through market participation is well known, it is also widely recognized that smallholder farmers face many challenges. This thesis discusses the challenges of OA in the case of Bhutanese smallholder farmers and assesses the potential of the farmers' social network to address some of these challenges. What challenges do smallholder farmers face in a top-down approach to OA? What types of social networks are still practiced among smallholder farmers? What potential do social networks have in overcoming the challenges of OA that pose difficulties in implementation? Answering these questions is important because organic farmers report serious challenges that are often neglected by the government in low-income countries. Because farmers are part of a community and embedded in the social structure, a change at the community level can have a huge impact on individual members. The actions of each individual can also have an impact on others, which in turn can affect the overall outcome for the community. Farmers in low-income countries rely on informal network relationships of various kinds as a substitute for the missing or inadequate formal institutions. To assess the potential of farmers' social networks in addressing the challenges of OA, this thesis identifies specific social networks that are characteristic of the farming community and relevant to addressing the challenges of OA for smallholder farmers. This study is based on three main chapters that reflect the main objectives of the overall work: 1) To describe the large-scale conversion of the OA sector in Bhutan and discuss the challenges related to institutional capacity, management and farming practices, nutrient balances and yield gaps, 2) examining informal labor exchanges in farming villages with successful adoption of labor-intensive farming practices and determining the nature of social enforcement mechanisms used, and 3) outlining and testing how two conceptually distinct social mechanisms fit the observed reality of adoption of improved seeds in Bhutanese remote villages. The first chapter takes a descriptive approach, while the second chapter presents an empirical study. The last chapter has a primarily methodological focus. In addition to these three chapters, the relevance of social network in the case of OA and the aims of the thesis are presented in the introductory chapter, and a final chapter contains the major conclusions, limitations and policy implications of the findings. The second chapter, which deals with the first objective, analyzes the feasibility of large- scale conversion to OA in Bhutan. It illustrates that organic farmers must comply with the Bhutan Organic Standard (BOS) and that the number of certified farmers under the Local Organic Assurance System (LOAS) is increasing. The results also show that organic farmers are struggling with low yields, nutrient imbalances in nitrogen, lack of funds to implement organic programs, lack of extension services for OA, and other related institutional inadequacies. The chapter argues that analyzing and understanding the challenges of conversion to OA in Bhutan can lead to transferable findings to similar contexts characterized by smallholder farming systems. The third chapter, which deals with the second objective, examines informal labor exchanges in Bhutanese farming villages that have successfully adopted labor-intensive agricultural practices such as OA. It then tests the existence of social enforcement mechanisms described in the literature by relating the observed network pattern of labor exchange to farmers supposed cooperative behavior. The results show that labor exchange networks in organic farming villages are characterized by a high prevalence of completely connected structures (i.e. triad closure) that seem to constitute the main enforcement mechanism. It discusses how this social network (well-functioning labor exchange) can be used to select further villages for OA implementation in the future. The fourth chapter addresses the third objective and examines how two different forms of social network mechanisms–social contagion (direct communication) and structural equivalence (social standing)–can benefit the dissemination of improved seeds in a wider agricultural community. This study was formulated against the assumption that farmers do not make decisions in isolation and that technology diffusion models with social network considerations provide better explanations and policy guidance. The results provide evidence that an interventionist agricultural policy should not only favor farmers with multiple connections in the hope that their behavior will influence their multiple network partners, but also farmers in different social positions, including peripheral network positions, who can inspire other, less well-connected farmers to adopt. The thesis concludes that considering the potential of farmers’ social networks in solving some of the challenges of OA in low-income countries like Bhutan can open up new avenues of research. The thesis also concludes that a large-scale conversion to OA in Bhutan may be more difficult to accomplish than previously thought, given the evidence of important challenges that are currently neglected. Given the evidence on the role of social networks and how they are still functioning in some remote villages in Bhutan, a bottom-up initiative with additional government support is preferable to the current top-down approach.