Agricultural Research Management Information System

Home
Research Summary
Search
About Us
- ARMIS
- Brochure
Contact Us
Report
User Request
Data Input
Help
- Operation Manual
  - PDF
  - Video
- Program Area & Commodity
We have reached 37600 number of research entries at this moment.

- Logout

Research Detail

Home
Research
Detail

The Impact of Potato and Sweet Potato on Poverty in Asia

Keith O. Fuglie
The Leader
Impact Enhancement Division, International Potato Center (CIP), Regional Office for East, Southeast Asia and the Pacific (ESEAP) in Bogor, Indonesia

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

Secondary root crops like potato and sweet potato play very important roles in the livelihoods of poor rural households in Asia. Therefore, improvements in the productivity of these crops are likely to have significant and positive impacts on poverty reduction. Over the past two decades, several new technologies for potato and sweet potato (crop varieties, higher quality seed, pest and disease management, and improved post-harvest utilization) have been developed and adopted by farmers in Asia. This paper uses quantitative and qualitative methods to assess the economic and poverty impacts of these technologies. First, a planning method is developed that uses net present value and poverty indicators to anticipate which new technologies are likely to have the most impact on poverty reduction. Then, evidence from a number of case studies of farmer adoption of new technologies is reviewed. The impacts of these technologies on the income of poor farm households as well as broader impacts on the rural economy are assessed. A qualitative scoring model is introduced that evaluates the impact of new technology on a set of poverty indicators. Research to develop improved potato and sweet potato technologies in Asia is found to have generated significant impacts on poverty reduction as well as giving a high rate of return on investment. The quantitative impact assessments and the qualitative scoring model indicate that certain technology is likely to have greater relevance for poverty reduction than others.

Keywords: Potato, Sweet Potato, Poverty

Location: In Bangladesh

Start Date:

End Date:

Program Area: Food Safety and Security

Commodity: Sweet potato, Potato

Objectives:

To determine the Impact of Potato and Sweet Potato on Poverty in Asia

Methodology:

To increase the impact of research on poverty alleviation, CIP has accorded priority to working in countries and regions where poverty levels are high and where potato and/or sweet potato play an important role in the food and agricultural system. In 2004, CIP published a new vision for its global research programme which identified 35 developing countries that met these criteria as the first priority for CIP. In Asia, these countries include China and Korea Democratic People’s Republic in northeast Asia; Viet Nam, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Papua New Guinea in Southeast Asia; India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan in South Asia, and some former Soviet republics in Central Asia and the Caucasus (International Potato Center, 2004). In its new Vision, CIP considered how it could contribute to the alleviation of several dimensions of poverty, including raising the incomes of very poor households by raising crop yield and market value, alleviating hunger and malnutrition directly by improving the availability of food staples for food-insecure households, and reducing child and maternal mortality through the biofortification of food crops. To identify priority countries, CIP combined measures of the importance of potato and sweet potato per capita and the extent of extreme poverty in a country or region. Walker and Collion (1997) assessed the impact of these technologies on poverty by looking at the extent of extreme poverty in the regions where adoption was expected to occur. For China and India, poverty rates were used for the major potato/sweet potato growing provinces or states where adoption was expected. They found that the share of total benefits likely to accrue to poor rural households was exceptionally high, about 57 percent of total benefits. The reason is simply that in Asia, most potatoes are sweet potatoes, which are grown on small farms in relatively poor areas. In South Asia, for example, the highest concentration of poor resides in the lower part of the Ganges River Valley (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal states of India, Bangladesh) where potato is widely grown as a winter crop in rotation with rice. In China, potato is grown primarily in interior provinces such as Sichuan and Yunnan in the southwest and Inner Mongolia and Gansu in the north, areas that have not enjoyed the same economic growth as the coastal provinces.

Source of Information: Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2004, UNESCAP, 2004

Article Link (Online Journal):

Funding Source:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

Improvements in potato and sweet potato productivity have had, and will likely continue to have, significant and positive effects on poverty reduction in Asia. Results from a number of case studies of ex-ante and ex-post impact assessments showed that investments in potato and sweet potato research and development generated not only high economic returns but also resulted in significant benefits to poor agricultural households in Asia. An important lesson from this review, however, is that research is a lengthy and risky investment: while overall returns are likely to be high, investments today may take a decade or more to generate significant impacts and some projects will fail while other projects will exceed expectations. An ongoing programme of impact assessment can help identify likely successes and failures relatively early in the technology development cycle in order to help direct Research and Development resources to projects with the greatest potential. Impact assessment of agricultural technology can include a number of dimensions. One useful criterion is the economic return, or net present value, of the investment in research and extension. This measure provides a ready means of comparing economic impacts among alternative investments. Another important criterion is the impact of adoption on the incomes and welfare of poor rural households. Analysis of income and poverty impacts based on household surveys is the preferred method but is costly and time-consuming. There are many additional dimensions of poverty that can also be assessed, such as the effects of technology adoption on equity, gender, landless labourers, hunger, malnutrition and the environment. Qualitative scoring models provide a relatively simple and low-cost way to assess these additional dimensions of impact. However, even such models are likely to require both specialized technical and social science knowledge to be used effectively. They are best used in combination with quantitative economic assessments.

Knowledge Management: Journal