Rep o rt of th e tw en - Rotterdam Convention

3.25 Impact assessment of IPM-FFS implemented by the FAO-EU IPM Programme
for Cotton in Asia
Investment in rural education and farmer training has become an important component of
development assistance. In the past, these activities were considered as public goods whose benefits
were often taken for granted. Sometimes, cost-effectiveness analysis had been applied with the aim
to maximize the effectiveness of limited public funds through targeted placement of education
programmes. More recently, however, the question of investment efficiency had also been raised
with farmer training activities. Hence, training was considered as an investment with an identifiable
stream of benefits that occurred over time. Especially a publicly funded training programme that
followed the Farmer Field School approach should be subject to rigorous analysis and scrutiny because
of the widespread perception that this concept was too expensive. Thus treating an FFS programme
in the context of cost-benefit analysis could help to answer the question of whether FFS was
a justifiable investment from the point of view of the donor and implementing countries. Hence,
the objective of this presentation was to investigate the economic efficiency of investment in training
farmers under the FFS approach as undertaken by the FAO-EU IPM Programme for Cotton in Asia.
Results of the analysis indicated that the public investment of the EU to implement the IPM
Programme for Cotton in Asia was economically justified. This judgment could be made with some
confidence since the analysis used rather conservative assumptions. In reality, the viability of the
investment might be stronger. If the national programmes continued to support IPM under their
regular extension activities, farmers were likely to continue to practise IPM beyond the two years
assumed in this analysis. Also, national governments might undertake additional investments in
IPM-FFS resulting in further scaling-up of the programme. For example, the Government of Pakistan
had committed significantly more of its budget for IPM, expressing its willingness to diffuse the
programme further.
In conclusion, the analysis of the benefits and costs of the FAO-EU IPM Programme for
Cotton in Asia showed that even under conservative assumptions, the investments made by the project
paid off. Overall, this study showed that in order to conduct meaningful benefit-cost analysis,
a well-designed impact assessment scheme was a necessary pre-condition to obtain the basic data
required for such analysis. To sustain the benefits from FFS programmes, it was crucial that enabling
policy conditions were in place in order to create incentives for farmers to continue IPM practices.
Moreover, institutional models for up-scaling IPM and the role of FFS thereof needed to be developed.
Furthermore, a long-term ex post impact analysis would be needed to verify the critical assumptions
of the analysis presented here.
3.26 US Department of Agriculture-Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
(USDA-APHIS)
Mr Gary T. Greene, USDA-APHIS Regional Director, Asia and Pacific region, presented an
overview of the USDA-APHIS current activities. Its roles and responsibilities in the region primarily
dealt with trade facilitation, management of pre-clearance programmes, market access facilitation,
liaison with the US-based staff to address SPS related issues, SPS capacity building, eradication
programmes and other ad-hoc activities involving animal and plant health issues.
Contact information was provided from the six APHIS area offices in the region: Australia,
China, Japan, the Philippines, Republic of Korea, and the newly-established area office in Taiwan
Province of China. APHIS is anticipating future expansion by opening area offices in Beijing and
Shanghai, China, Thailand and New Delhi, India.
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