Record Details

The potential economic impact of guinea-race sorghum hybrids in Mali: Comparing research paradigms

OAR@ICRISAT

View Archive Info
 
 
Field Value
 
Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/9765/
 
Title The potential economic impact of guinea-race sorghum hybrids in Mali: Comparing research paradigms
 
Creator Kergna, A
Smale, M
Assima, A
Weltzien, E
Rattunde, F
 
Subject Sorghum
 
Description Rural Malians who grow dryland crops depend on sorghum as a primary food staple. Despite steady advances in sorghum research, in this risk-prone environment, achieving major gains in national sorghum yields has posed a challenge. We assess the potential economic impact of the first, Guinea-race sorghum hybrids produced and diffused using participatory plant breeding with decentralized, farmer-managed seed systems. We compare this approach to formal plant breeding with a centralized, state-managed seed system, which was the approach pursued prior to 2000. To incorporate risk, we augment the economic surplus model by applying Monte Carlo sampling to simulate distributions of model parameters. A census of sorghum varieties in 58 villages in the high-potential sorghum production zone serves as the adoption baseline. Our findings indicate that research on sorghum hybrids is a sound investment, but particularly when combined with locally-based mechanisms for disseminating seed. In part, this finding reflects the fact that despite many years of efforts aimed at liberalizing the seed sector in Mali, the sorghum seed system remains largely farmer-based.
 
Date 2016-09
 
Type Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Rights —
 
Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/9765/1/301.%20Ex%20Ante%20Impact%20sorghum%20hybrids%20Mali.pdf
Kergna, A and Smale, M and Assima, A and Weltzien, E and Rattunde, F (2016) The potential economic impact of guinea-race sorghum hybrids in Mali: Comparing research paradigms. In: 5th International Conference of the African Association of Agricultural Economists, September 23-26, 2016, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.