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Institution: University of Ibadan, Nigeria

E-mail: afalusi@skannet.com

Biosummary:

Professor Abiodun Olu Falusi was born in Ire, Ekiti State, Nigeria in 1945. He obtained B.Sc. Agric. (1968) University of Ibadan, and Ph.D Agricultural Economics (1973), Cornell University, USA. He was Research Fellow, (1973) Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER), Senior Lecturer (1976) and Professor (1983) Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Ibadan, where he was Head of Department, 1991-94. Professor Falusi has served as Consultant to various National and International Organisations including the Federal Ministry of Agriculture; the National Planning Commission, FAO, UNDP, World Bank, IFAD and ECA. His current research interests include food policy analysis, the population, agriculture and environment nexus and economic impact assessment of agricultural research in Nigeria.

Title: "Effect of technology change on income equity in Nigeria: The case of improved Cassava."

Theme: 2D

Abstract:

An important issue of development policy in Nigeria is how to achieve a balance between productivity and equity objectives. This study investigated the effect of adopting improved cassava production technology on developmental income equity objective and examined whether investment on cassava research is economically justifiable.

Index number approach was used to estimate the gross annual social benefits of cassava improvement research from the profile of aggregate national outputs of cassava, which were disaggregated between improved and local varieties. Using investment evaluation approach, the economic rate of return (ERR) was obtained.

The study examined the distributional impact of cassava technology change and commercialisation on the income of cassava producers and consumers using the Marshallian concept which measures social benefit to technology change in terms of changes in producers' and consumers' surplus. The attribute of semi-subsistence production was incorporated into an analysis of the relationship between technology change and income distribution.

The estimated economic rate of return to research was 55 percent. The surplus generated as a result of using the improved cassava varieties was estimated to be shared in the proportion of 28 to 72 percent between producers and consumers respectively under the average situation in which producers' rate of commercialisation was 0.50 and cassava supply function shifted by 31 per cent.

The examination of the intra-sectoral distribution of cassava technology benefit among producers showed improved technology to be a force bridging income inequity gap between cassava producers of different holdings as the large scale producers lose more of their benefit to consumers.

The examination of the intra-sectoral distribution of technology benefit among consumers showed that the relative gain in real income is larger for households of low income people because cassava and cassava products form major items of the households expenditure.

The most crucial determinant of developmental income equity is the strengthening of the research, extension and support system for a semi-subsistence crop, so that the rate of shift in supply can exceed that of demand.