Poverty and nutrition impact o BT eggplant adoption in the Philippines

Poverty and malnutrition remain a serious problem particularly in the developing country like the Philippines.The consideration of poverty and nutrition had added new dimension in impact evaluation. Respite increased interest in understanding poverty and nutrition impacts of agricultural research, however, few ex ante studies of impacts of R and D on aggregate poverty and nutrition have been conducted. This research undertaking sought to determine the poverty and nutrition impact of the adoption of BT eggplant technology in the Philippines. The methodology used in this study used a combined economic surplus analysis with household-level data analysis to construct ex ante estimates of changes in poverty and nutrition status resulting from adopting BT eggplants. The data used in the nutrition analysis utilized secondary data from the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics, the Family Income and Expenditure Survey(FIES) of 2003 from the National Statistics Office and the Agriculture Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture. other information came from Francisco(2006 and 2007) studies. Results showed that the poverty-reducing impact of Bt eggplant technology is quite substantial for those who will adopt the technology. Before the adoption of the 100% of the eggplant farmers in the survey sides 96 farmers were poor with average household income of P73,120. After the adoption,the number of poor eggplant farmers was reduced to 45 and the household income increased to P198,120. The net impact to poverty was decrease in the number of poor farmers by 31 eggplant farming households. The per capita calorie intake per day is generally positive but is negligible. This is due in part to the fact that price effects were the only factor that was considered and allowed to work their way through cross price elasticities,ignoring income effects in the process. Based from the results obtained from the analysis, it can be conclude that if Bt eggplant would be adopted by many farmers, it can have a significant impact on reducing poverty of the eggplant producers and improving the nutritional status of the eggplant consumers.