Potential Welfare Benefit of Millets Improvement Research at ICRISAT: Multi country - Economic Surplus model approach,Socioeconomics Discussion Paper Series Number 15

In this paper a multi-regional international trade model using concepts of economic surplus and spillover effects is used to estimate the ex-ante measures of the relative economic benefits (accounting both direct and spillover benefits) to provide evidence for the research managers and policy makers in making judgment for prioritizing production domains for millets research focus and research resource allocation among regions and countries. The empirical results indicate that the highest expected benefits to millet research could be generated when research is focused on production domain -warm tropics dryland, 120-149 days- but the high payoff production domains are different among regions. In Asia, the warm tropics drylands, 120-149 days is the highest payoff production domains with $479.85 M benefits but for WCA and ESA the highest payoff production domains is warm tropics drylands, 90-119 days and warm tropics subhumid, >150 days with expected benefits of $242.42 M and $15.06 M respectively. The contribution of spillover benefits to the total international benefits varies between 45 to 97% depending upon the research focus in different production domains. The analysis also indicates that the potential benefits of millets research could be tripled or even quadrupled by improving the adaptive research capacity and adoption of technology among farmers. The analysis clearly brought out the insights to focus ICRISAT’s millet research to achieve maximum international benefits to generate greater impacts. The distribution of benefits across the regions and countries can be used to support millet research funding decisions.