An economic evaluation of postharvest tropical fruit research: some preliminary results

As most economies develop there is an important trend to specialisation in the production of most activities. Associated with this trend is the increased importance of trade. This trade occurs usually within a country to begin with but eventually becomes international as well. In most economies the agricultural sector plays a major role in the early stages of the development process. As domestic and international trade in agricultural products expands, increased importance is placed on the postharvest sector, in the form of, for example, assembly, transport, storage, grading and processing of produce.

As the demand for postharvest sector products and services expands there are increased incentives to improve the technologies available in this sector. Research is an important source of these improved technologies. Since many postharvest activities are undertaken by private businesses and many of the technologies used in this sector can be patented, the private sector often plays an important role in providing this postharvest research effort. However, there is still a range of production constraints which are only likely to be resolved through public sector supported research. The results from these types of research are not appropriable by those undertaking the research and, therefore, the private sector may under-invest in these areas. This paper assumes a case has been established for public sector funding of tropical fruit postharvest research and the question is how do decision-makers ensure that these funds are allocated effectively.

With the growth of economies in tropical regions of the world has come an increase in the demand for a range of fruits grown in these regions. Increased trade within and between countries has created an incentive for improvements in many aspects of the postharvest activities associated with these fruits. During the last decade or so there have been increased public sector research efforts which have focused on postharvest activities for tropical fruit.

Increasingly public research institutions are placing more importance on efforts to evaluate the impact of the research they fund. The information generated by these evaluations has been found to make several important contributions, these include: it provides a useful basis for supporting cases for continued and increased government funding of research; it provides information which can support decision-making within research institutions; and often, if undertaken with constructive interaction between economists and technical scientists, it can improve the nature and focus of the research projects. Evaluation of farm level research was first undertaken in the 1950s and a now considerable set of these evaluations has been completed for a range of commodities and countries. Evaluation of postharvest research has only received attention during the last 10 years. As far as we are aware there have been no published studies which have focused on postharvest tropical fruit research.

Given the growing interest in postharvest tropical fruit research, as is evidenced by the papers included in these conference proceedings, it seems important to devote some effort to determining what the impact of this type of research has been or is likely to be. This paper provides a preliminary attempt to look at this issue. It provides a brief review of methods for evaluation of agricultural research, especially postharvest research. A summary of some of the past attempts to evaluate postharvest research is presented and briefly discussed. None of these studies has considered projects which focus on tropical fruit. In the rest of the paper the results of a preliminary analysis of 6 collaborative postharvest tropical fruit research projects are discussed. A model which suits evaluation of these postharvest tropical fruit research projects is chosen and the implications of the preliminary results from its application are discussed.