The public demand for information about both economic and environmental impacts of agricultural research has been widely recognized. Indeed, one could argue that one explanation for "Why Has Impact Assessment Research Not Made More of a Difference? is that until recently it has focused only on economic impacts. However, it is also true that until recently, methods and tools (data, models, and model integration software) needed to conduct more integrated types of assessments have been lacking. In a companion paper, we address another key issue, namely the need to integrate public decision makers and stakeholders into the assessment process.||This paper introduces the reader to recently developed methods and tools for integrated assessment of agricultural production systems known as tradeoff analysis (TOA) and the TOA model, and discusses how these methods and tools can be used to assess quantitatively the impacts of agricultural research on the sustainability of production systems. Sustainability is defined in terms of economic, environmental, and other quantifiable indicators of the system's performance.||The paper begins with a discussion of a general approach to the integrated assessment of agricultural production systems that is known as TOA. We show how the conventional economic assessment of research impacts can be embedded in this more general framework, and how it can be used for both ex post and ex ante assessment of research impacts. TOA is based on the identification of key quantifiable sustainability indicators (e.g., economic indicators, environmental and social impact indicators) by stakeholders. A key methodological question is how to assess the impacts of research in these multiple dimensions and communicate that information to decision makers and stakeholders. In this section, we discuss several approaches taken by economists to this problem, as well as the solution provided by the TOA approach.||The next section of the paper discusses issues related to the implementation of an integrated assessment of an agricultural production system for research impact assessment. Various methodological issues arise related to the choice of spatial and temporal scales, data availability, the suitability of existing disciplinary models, and how these data and models can be integrated to implement such an assessment. In this context, we briefly introduce the TOA model software that can be used to implement this type of integrated assessment. This software organizes data in a GIS framework and links inputs and outputs from disciplinary simulation models (biophysical crop and livestock models, economic models, and environmental process models) on a site-specific basis and aggregates results to a larger spatial unit (such as a watershed or political region).||The final section of the paper illustrates the use of this type of integrated assessment tool to assess impacts of agricultural research using recent case studies in Ecuador and Peru. Examples of technologies being investigated in these areas include late-blight resistant potato varieties, integrated pest management techniques, and soil conservation technologies (terracing, agroforestry, and alternative tillage practices). These examples illustrate how this type of assessment tool can be used to assess impacts of existing and alternative technologies within the crop and livestock production systems.

English

0310|AGRIS 0301|AL-Economics Program|R01PROCE

Juan Carlos Mendieta

CIMMYT Publications Collection