This paper provides an empirical investigation into the long-standing notion of biases of technical change in South African agriculture. The second order cost function is used to derive relative bias measures between labour and machinery. The results suggest that large machinery-using biases in...

This article evaluates the impact of research and technology development in the wine grape industry in order to determine the rate of return (ROR) to these investments, and to make specific recommendations on funding. The analysis illustrates the applied and adaptive nature of the research...

The only commercial genetically modified (GM) subsistence food crop is white maize in South Africa, which was released in 2001/2. This paper reports on the performance of insect resistant (Bt) white maize grown by smallholders in Hlabisa, KwaZulu Natal, where the other development is minimum...

Twenty percent of the world population, or 1.2 billion live on less than $1 per day; 70% of these are rural and 90% in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Research led technological change in agriculture generates sufficient productivity growth to give high rates of return in African and Asia and has a...

Intellectual property protection, globalization, and pressure on public budgets in many industrialized countries have shifted the balance of plant breeding activity from the public to the private sector. Several economic factors influence the relative shares of public versus private sector plant...

Analysis of a survey of the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 seasons for the same 100 smallholders in the Makhathini Flats region of KwaZulu-Natal shows that Bt cotton has performed better than other varieties. Having two years of data for the same farmers allows innate efficiency differences, due to...

This paper uses non-parametric approach to measure technical innovation and productivity growth at the smallholder farm-level in dry-land sub-Saharan Africa during the initial years of the structural adjustment programmes for agriculture. Data from Kenya for two production years, 1991/2 and...

This paper briefly presents the results of a total factor productivity (TFP) study of South African commercial agriculture, for 1947-1997, and illustrates some potential pitfalls in rate of return to research (ROR) calculations. The lag between R&D and TFP is analyzed and found to be only 9...