Proceedings of the Fifth Asian Regional Maize Workshop - Search ...

Table 1. Projections of demand for maize for food and feed in Asia, 1990-2005.
Food use
Feed use
Total
Total demand
(million t)
1990
2005
53
53
81
221
134
274
Projected growth in demarid, 1990-2005 (% per year)
Maize
Rice
Wheat
0.0
2.0
2.9
6.9
na
na
4.9
2.0
3.1
Source: CIMMYT Economics Program, based on Byerlee and Saad (1993).
improved germplasm offers one of the most effective and cheapest opportunities. In many
Asian countries, use of improved maize varieties and hybrids is still modest. Not
including China, about 6.8 million ha are sown to improved materials (Table 3).11 Only
about 2 million ha are sown to hybrids, while about 5.8 million ha are sown to improved
open-poliinated varieties (OPVs). Expansion of the area under hybrid maize thus represents
a major potential source of future yield increases.
This paper addresses a number of economic and policy issues that will influence the
success of a strategy to expand the area under hybrid maize in Asia. While the benefits of
hybrid maize have been convincingly demonstrated in commercial maize producing countries,
especially the USA, it is not so clear that a hybrid-based strategy can be equally
effective in the small farm agriculture that characterizes most of Asia (Table 4). Indeed,
two arguments have frequently been advanced to support the view that hybrid maize may not
be an appropriate technology for small-scale farmers: 1) new seed must be purchased every
year, creating an expense which small-scale farmers may not be able to afford, and 2) the
yield advantage of hybrid maize is expressed only with good management and high levels of
purchased inPuts, which may be beyond the reach of small-scale farmers.
The next section brief.ly describes the evolution of maize breeding strategies in
developing countries and reviews the range of experiences with improved OPVs and hybrids.
We then examine the farmer's decision whether or not to adopt hybrid maize, identifying
key factors that most influence the adoption decision. The final section addresses the
question of the appropriate mix of private and pUblic sector involvement in hybrid maize
research, seed production, and seed marketing, focusing especially on the ways in which
public policy can influence the success of a strategy to promote hybrid maize technology.
2. Brief history of the evolution of OPVs and hybrids
Hybrid maize was first introduced in the USA beginning in 1933. Ten years later,
nearly all of the American "Corn Belt" was planted to hybrid seed, and hybrids were being
11 Since data on use of improved OPVs and hybrids in China are still being compiled, the
figures cited here do not include China. However, most maize in China is planted in
temperate regions, so inclusion of the data for China's tropical and highland production
zones will have only a modest effect on the regional aggregates for Asia.
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