Estimation of ICRISAT Sorghum Research Spillover Benefits – Strategies for Research Prioritization. Research Report No 72.

ICRISAT is working on sorghum crop improvement primarily in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa since 1972. Diversified regional focuses and collaborations with different national and international institutes marked the sorghum genetic enhancement research at ICRISAT to a six phase strategy beginning from 1972 to the present. In the initial years, the main focus was on development of improved populations, composites and open pollinated varieties of sorghum. But with rapid development of the hybrid seed industry in Asia and re-orientation of research programs in sub-Saharan Africa, emphasis was laid on developing improved hybrid parents (intermediate products) at ICRISAT, Patancheru for Asia, and finished products (varieties and hybrids) at other ICRISAT locations in Africa, through partnership research from 1995. The Hybrid Parents Research Consortium (HPRC) is a new initiative started in 2000 at ICRISAT, Patancheru with the objective of increasing the scope of accessibility to improved hybrids for poor farmers through effective public-private partnerships. So far, 270 improved sorghum cultivars were released using breeding materials by NARS across 45 countries in Asia, Africa and America between 1975 and 2016. These research products aimed at a given location may spill across regions, nations or even across traditional agro-ecological zones. The potential for such spillovers depends on several factors like bio-physical and socio-economic similarities between locations. Earlier attempts made by ICRISAT have documented the potential of inter- and intra-regional sorghum technology transfers. But, very little has been done in terms of assessing and systematically quantifying the potential and actual inter-regional spillovers from its own research and development efforts. The global sorghum research domains identified during the ICRISAT Mid Term Plan (1994-1998) were more than two decades old and there is a need to upgrade them for better targeting of sorghum crop improvement research at ICRISAT. The Multi-region, single commodity economic surplus model developed by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research was adapted and modified for estimation of ICRISAT sorghum spillover benefits. Gross benefits were estimated with an assumption that the global research investments being made at ICRISAT on international public good nature of innovative research. Based on these results, potential research domains, regions and countries were identified for better targeting of ICRISAT research. The findings emanated from this study will not only help in sorghum research prioritization at ICRISAT but also guide the future sorghum research investments portfolio.