Untitled - CGIAR Impact

20 ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF NEW RICE TECHNOLOGY
Table 15. Economics of management-package experiments in nine farmers' fields in Nueva Ecija,
Philippines, 1976 dry season.
Increase over the farmers' treatment
Sites (no.) with
Treatment
no.
Cash cost (US$/ha)
Fertilizer
Weed
control
Insect
control
Net
benefits
(US$/ha)
Yield
(t/ha)
US$ return Increased
per net
US$ cost benefits
Decreased
net
benefits
1 (farmers')
2
3
4
41
75
109
–
20
20
20
24
101
101
– 4.2
112 0.4
238 2.1
254 2.3
– –
6
3.6 7
3.0 6
–
3
2
3
Table 16. Economics of management-package experiments in nine farmers' fields in Nueva Ecija,
Philippines, 1976 wet season.
Increase over the farmers' treatment
Sites (no.) with
Treatment
no.
Cash cost (US$/ha)
Fertilizer
Weed
control
Insect
control
Net
benefits
(US$/ha)
Yield
(t/ha)
US$ return
per
US$ cost
Increased
net
benefits
Decreased
net
benefits
1 (farmers')
2
3
4
36
60
84
–
20
20
20
28
73
73
–
108
124
126
2.8
0.9
1.4
1.6
–
7.0
2.4
2.1
–
7
8
8
–
2
1
1
go through a learning process upon the introduction of new technology. The
process may also account for some of the observed yield gap.
The economic analysis of all experiments is summarized in Table 17. In three
of the eight cases, the maximum yield treatment was also the maximum profit
treatment. In the others, a lower yielding treatment gave higher profits. The
maximum yield plots averaged 1.6 t/ha more yields than the control plots; the
maximum profit plots averaged 1.2 t/ha more than the control. The plots with
the maximum returns per dollar cash cost averaged 0.7 t/ha more yield than the
control plots. Moreover, the plots with high rates of return were 75% as
profitable as the maximum profit plots, while the latter required almost twice
the cash input. The maximum yield plots gave the lowest rate of return, $1.5/$
invested, while the maximum profit plots averaged $1.8 and the high-returnper-dollar
cash plots gave $2.1.
The pattern that emerges from these experiments can be summarized as follows:
1. In an experiment designed to obtain maximum possible yield, the treatment
giving that yield will generally not give the maximum net return.