EVALUATING RETURNS TO RESEARCH IN PASTURE IMPROVEMENT

The objectives of the study reported here were (a) to attempt to identify pasture research findings which have been important for the development of improved pastures in a number of agricultural regions, and (b) to estimate the internal rates of return on the investment in pasture research in these regions. The technique used was the estimation of input-demand functions for the stock of improved pastures. It is shown that the important research results were mainly the result of research in plant nutrition. Adoption lags were estimated, and these were short by comparison with those usually derived by other methods. Internal rates of return calculated for successful research findings were very high, hut there were important differences between regions.