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An economic analysis of publicly funded vegetable research in South Africa from 1980 to 2012

Dissertation (MScAgric)--University of Pretoria, 2015.

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Other Authors: Liebenberg, Frikkie
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: University of Pretoria 2015
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author2 Liebenberg, Frikkie
author_browse Liebenberg, Frikkie
author_facet Liebenberg, Frikkie
collection Thesis
dc_rights_str_mv © 2015 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria.
description Dissertation (MScAgric)--University of Pretoria, 2015.
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institution University of Pretoria (South Africa)
language English
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publisher University of Pretoria
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spelling oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/50677 An economic analysis of publicly funded vegetable research in South Africa from 1980 to 2012 Liebenberg, Frikkie mananarancho@gmail.com/RanchoM@arc.agric.za Kirsten, Johann F. Mamabolo, Manana UCTD Public investment Agricultural research Economic evaluations Returns on investment Agricultural Research Council (ARC) Vegetable research Vegetable cultivars Research investments Marginal internal rate of return ARC-VOPI Breeding Decline in research investments Natural and agricultural sciences theses SDG-02 SDG-02: Zero hunger Natural and agricultural sciences theses SDG-09 SDG-09: Industry, innovation and infrastructure Natural and agricultural sciences theses SDG-12 SDG-12: Responsible consumption and production Dissertation (MScAgric)--University of Pretoria, 2015. Public investment in agricultural research has been declining in inflation-adjusted terms over the years in South Africa. This has created a need to evaluate agricultural research and provide evidence of the benefits derived from agricultural research investments. Economic evaluations of agricultural research have been conducted in South Africa and have shown positive returns to agricultural research investments. The studies have been conducted at national, enterprise, institute, crop and project levels. Similar evaluation studies have also been conducted specifically for research conducted by the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) of South Africa, the principal public research organization in the country. These studies were focused on grain, livestock, deciduous fruit and some ornamental plants research. With the exception of sweet potato research, the economic returns to vegetable research have not yet been estimated in South Africa and as such, the returns to vegetable research, at national, crop or institute levels are not yet known. This study therefore aims to conduct an economic analysis of vegetable research for the period 1980 to 2012. The analysis focused on publicly funded vegetable research in South Africa and included evaluating the contribution of Agricultural Research Council’s Vegetable and Ornamental Plant Institute (ARC-VOPI) to vegetable cultivars developed over the years, evaluating the trend in public vegetable research investments over the period 1980 to 2012 and estimating the marginal internal rate of return to vegetable research. A Plant Breeders’ Rights analysis was conducted to evaluate ARC-VOPI’s contribution to vegetable cultivars developed over the years. This involved analysing the ownership of registered cultivars among 14 selected commercial vegetables as recorded in the South African Plant Variety Journal from 1966 until 2013. The analysis revealed that 41 percent of the registered commercial vegetable cultivars over that period were owned by foreign companies and 37 percent of the cultivars were owned by domestic private companies. The public sector only accounted for 17 percent of the cultivars and this was concentrated in four vegetable commodities, two of which were bred by ARC-VOPI, i.e. sweet potatoes and potatoes. The relatively low involvement of ARC-VOPI in the breeding of vegetables was due to, among other reasons, the general decline in vegetable research investments over the years. The institute went from investing about R15 million in inflation-adjusted 2010 values in vegetable research in the 1980s to about R5 million in 2012. The decline particularly occurred from the early 1990s when changes in funding policy were introduced, not only at the institute but within the ARC as a whole. In addition, the mandate to service resource-poor agriculture given to the institute in the early 1990s resulted in 20 percent of the institute’s funds being redistributed to this sector alone. The marginal internal rate of return to public vegetable research investments was estimated to be 39 percent. This rate of return implies that a R100 increase in vegetable research yields marginal gains of R39 to the vegetable industry. The rate of return was estimated using an ex-post production function with a polynomial distribution lag. This rate of return is significant and consistent with findings in previous studies which estimated rates of return of between 40 percent and 78 percent for other ARC institutes, thus providing justification for increasing investments in vegetable research. tm2015 es2025 Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development MScAgric Unrestricted SDG-02: Zero hunger SDG-09: Industry, innovation and infrastructure SDG-12: Responsible consumption and production 2015-11-25T09:47:13Z 2015-11-25T09:47:13Z 2015/09/01 2015 Dissertation Mamabolo, M 2015, An economic analysis of publicly funded vegetable research in South Africa from 1980 to 2012, MScAgric Dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd <http://hdl.handle.net/2263/50677> S2015 http://hdl.handle.net/2263/50677 en © 2015 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. application/pdf University of Pretoria
spellingShingle UCTD
Public investment
Agricultural research
Economic evaluations
Returns on investment
Agricultural Research Council (ARC)
Vegetable research
Vegetable cultivars
Research investments
Marginal internal rate of return
ARC-VOPI
Breeding
Decline in research investments
Natural and agricultural sciences theses SDG-02
SDG-02: Zero hunger
Natural and agricultural sciences theses SDG-09
SDG-09: Industry, innovation and infrastructure
Natural and agricultural sciences theses SDG-12
SDG-12: Responsible consumption and production
An economic analysis of publicly funded vegetable research in South Africa from 1980 to 2012
title An economic analysis of publicly funded vegetable research in South Africa from 1980 to 2012
title_full An economic analysis of publicly funded vegetable research in South Africa from 1980 to 2012
title_fullStr An economic analysis of publicly funded vegetable research in South Africa from 1980 to 2012
title_full_unstemmed An economic analysis of publicly funded vegetable research in South Africa from 1980 to 2012
title_short An economic analysis of publicly funded vegetable research in South Africa from 1980 to 2012
title_sort economic analysis of publicly funded vegetable research in south africa from 1980 to 2012
topic UCTD
Public investment
Agricultural research
Economic evaluations
Returns on investment
Agricultural Research Council (ARC)
Vegetable research
Vegetable cultivars
Research investments
Marginal internal rate of return
ARC-VOPI
Breeding
Decline in research investments
Natural and agricultural sciences theses SDG-02
SDG-02: Zero hunger
Natural and agricultural sciences theses SDG-09
SDG-09: Industry, innovation and infrastructure
Natural and agricultural sciences theses SDG-12
SDG-12: Responsible consumption and production
url http://hdl.handle.net/2263/50677