Is Rice Improvement Still Making a Difference? Assessing the Economic, Poverty, and Food Security Impacts of Rice Varieties Released from 1989 to 2009 in Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines

Raitzer, D.A., Sparks, A.H., Huelgas, Z., Maligalig, R., Balangue, Z., Launio, C., Daradjat, A., and Ahmed, H.U. 2015. Is Rice Improvement Still Making a Difference? Assessing the Economic, Poverty and Food Security Impacts of Rice Varieties Released from 1989 to 2009 in Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines. A report submitted to the Standing Panel on Impact Assessment (SPIA), CGIAR Independent Science and Partnership Council (ISPC). 128 pp

This is one of the three proposals funded through a competitive call for proposals to evaluate the links between agricultural research and poverty in 2011. More background on the SPIA project (Social impacts: poverty and hunger http://impact.cgiar.org/impacts/poverty) can be found here (http://impact.cgiar.org/impacts/poverty).

The productivity impact of the initial diffusion of modern varieties (MVs) of rice across Asia during the 1960s through the 1980s, as part of the “Green Revolution”, is one of the most documented successes of international development assistance in agriculture. However, much less is known about whether continued efforts to further improve rice varieties are making similar contributions to on farm productivity. This study assesses the degree to which post 1989 MVs of rice have led to increased agricultural productivity, economic surplus, welfare for the poor, food security and environmental benefits in Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines.