Diemuth E. Pemsl

• Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research

Investments in international agricultural research have proven very successful at an aggregated level over the past decades. Decision makers, however, face the tough question of how best to allocate limited public funds across increasingly diverse research areas to achieve the largest impacts. Simultaneously, donors demand more accountability from...

Rationale, approach, methods and parameter data for the joint Projection of Benefits for Genetic Innovations CGIAR Initiatives

The spread of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense tropical race 4 (Foc TR4), causal agent of Fusarium wilt of banana (FWB), has been projected to reach 17% of the global banana-growing area by 2040 equaling 36 million tons of production worth over US$10 billion. This potential loss has fueled (inter)national discussions about the best responses to pr...

Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc) Tropical race 4 (TR4) has been characterized as primarily a threat to export ‘Cavendish’ bananas, although others highlight the potential menace to smallholder banana livelihoods globally. To date, no systematic assessment or approach to estimate the risk of introduction, the rate of internal spread and the e...

Bt cotton has been cultivated in China for a decade. Studies have been conducted to assess theimpact on productivity and pesticide use. Limitations of these studies are the short time period considered and the reliability of data. This paper presents findings from monitoring 150 Bt cotton farmers in Shandong province in 2002 and 2005. Descriptive a...

Co-management is now established as a mainstream approach to small-scale fisheries management across the developing world. A comprehensive review of 204 potential cases reveals a lack of impact assessments of fisheries co-management. This study reports on a meta-analysis of the impact of fisheries co-management in developing countries in 90 sites a...

Intensification of agriculture often requires external inputs, has negative environmental effects and increases risk, especially for small-scale producers. Integrated aquaculture-agriculture (IAA) instead uses on-farm synergy effects of crop and fish production. The impact of long-term IAA training provided to small-scale farmers in Bangladesh is a...

In an earlier paper, a descriptive ex post study to assess the adoption and farm-level impacts of Genetically Improved Farmed Tilapia (GIFT) in the Philippines was conducted covering the top three producing provinces: Region II (Isabela, Nueva Viscaya and Quirino); Region III (Nueva Ecija and Pampanga); and Region IV (Laguna and Batangas). This pap...

A significant share of research for development aims at improving policy. The authors use the case of community-based fisheries management in Bangladesh to demonstrate how social network analysis can be applied to explore policy influence. Influence is an important intermediary step to impact. Data were collected in expert surveys conducted in 2007...

Data collection for poverty assessments in Africa is time consuming, expensive and can be subject to numerous constraints. In this paper we present a procedure to collect data from poor households involved in small-scale inland fisheries as well as agricultural activities. A sampling scheme has been developed that captures the heterogeneity in ecol...

Sustainable agricultural intensification is an urgent challenge for Sub-Saharan Africa. One potential solution is to rely on local farmers' knowledge for improved management of diverse on-farm resources and integration among various farm enterprises. In this article, we analyze the farm-level impact of one recent example, namely the integrated aqua...

Recent research on the Farmer Field School (FFS) approach in agriculture in developing countries has shown that FFS training has increased the knowledge (and in some cases) performance of trained farmers. However, several researchers found that the economic impacts of this concept and especially the knowledge diffusion effects from trained to non-t...

Economic analysis of chemical pesticide use has shown that the interactions between plants, pests, damage control technology and state of the ecosystem are important variables to be considered. Hence, a bio-economic model was developed for the assessment of Bt variety and pesticide-based control strategies of the cotton-bollworm in China. The model...

Bt cotton has been cultivated in China for the past 10 years. Limitations of previous studies analyzing the impact of this technology are the short time period considered and lack of panel data. In this paper, we present findings from monitoring 150 Bt cotton farmers in 2002 and 2005. Descriptive analysis reveals that pesticide use is increasing wh...

Accurate poverty assessments in developing countries require efforts to collect detailed household level data. Especially in Africa, such procedures are time consuming, expensive and can be subject to numerous constraints. In this paper we discuss the procedure of the collection of data on consumption, income and assets from poor households involve...

Economic analysis of chemical pesticide use has shown that the interactions between plants, pests, damage control technology and state of the ecosystem are important variables to be considered. Hence, a bio-economic model was developed for the assessment of Bt variety and pesticide-based control strategies of the cotton-bollworm in China. The model...

This book is addressed to scientists, researchers, development specialists and policy makers who deal with natural resources and agriculture in the developing countries. It aims to (1) provide evidence of the impact of natural resource management research (NRMR) in the CGIAR; (2) establish a methodological foundation for impact assessments of NRMR;...

Sustainable agricultural intensification is an urgent challenge for Sub-Saharan Africa. One potential solution is to rely on local farmers' knowledge for improved management of diverse on-farm resources and integration among various farm enterprises. In this article, we analyze the farm-level impact of one recent example, namely the integrated aqua...

Productivity assessment of damage control inputs (such as pesticides) is complicated because their effect depends on the exposure to damage agents (such as pests). We discuss some open specification and estimation issues. The contribution is threefold. First, we elaborate the separability conditions for the damage control function and production fu...

Malawi is a small but densely populated country in Southern Africa. Fish is an important part of the nutrition of Malawians, providing essential protein and micronutrients. However, per capita fish consumption has halved over the ten-year period between 1988 to 1998 due to over-fishing in the lakes and doubling of the population since the 1970s, ac...

Global aquaculture production increased with an average rate of 10% per year since 1990 and 90% of aquaculture production comes from developing countries thus providing livelihood and income especially to marginal groups who have limited access to resources such as agricultural land and financial capital. Geographical information systems (GIS) base...

Recent research on the Farmer Field School (FFS) approach in agriculture in developing countries has raised some doubts on the economic impacts of this concept and especially the knowledge diffusion effects from trained to non-trained farmers. Based on a study in Senegal this paper hypothesizes that the question of the project placement strategy is...

The use of genetically engineered crop varieties has recently become one option to prevent pest damage in agriculture. The promoters of biotechnology stress the great potential for yield increase and pesticide reduction while the critics point out the potential risks for biodiversity and human health as well as institutional problems for implementa...

China was the first developing country to introduce Bt cotton on a large scale. This paper provides an in-depth economic analysis of Bt cotton production by small-scale farmers in China. Data were collected in 2002 in Linqing County, in Shandong Province and comprised a season-long cotton production monitoring with 150 farmers and complementary hou...

Bt-cotton varieties can control lepidopterous pests, hence offering the possibility to reduce chemical pesticide use. India, with the largest cotton-growing area globally, gave commercial approval for Bt cotton in 2002 and a rapid adoption of the technology is expected. This paper uses a stochastic partial budgeting approach that captures the key p...

By 2002 the global area planted to Bt cotton has reached 2.2 Mill ha and transgenic varieties became increasingly popular in developing countries. The main cotton producing countries China and India gave commercial approval for Bt cotton in 1997 and 2002, respectively. Today Bt varieties have reached over 50% of the total cotton area in China. The...

This monograph is the case study for China, with a particular focus on Henan Province, the project location. Written in three parts, it first describes the historical background, production levels and trends, economic and institutional environment, policy issues, and market situation in China in general. The main part of the study presents findings...

This publication introduces the methods and results of a research project that has developed a set of decision-support tools to identify places and sets of conditions for which a particular target aquaculture technology is considered feasible and therefore good to promote. The tools also identify the nature of constraints to aquaculture development...

This monograph is a result of a 3-year project to produce a decision-support toolkit with supporting databases and case studies to help researchers, planners and extension agents working on freshwater pond aquaculture. The purpose of the work was to provide tools and information to help practitioners identify places and conditions where pond aquacu...

This report is an output of the project “Determination of high-potential aquaculture development areas and impact in Africa and Asia”. This monograph is the case study for Cameroon. Written in three parts, it describes the historical background, practices, stakeholder profiles, production levels, economic and institutional environment, policy issue...

Résumé La collecte de données en vue d'évaluer la pauvreté en Afrique prend du temps, est coûteuse et peut présenter de nombreux obstacles. Dans le présent article, nous décrivons une procédure de collecte des données auprès de ménages vivant de la pêche continentale artisanale, ainsi que d'activités agricoles. Un plan d'échantillonnage a été établ...