Assessing Environmental Impacts

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Background information

Phase 1: 2008-09 Scoping papers

In 2008, SPIA commissioned a study to address some of these issues focusing in particular on the following three objectives:

• Adapting, applying and evaluating emerging approaches to assessing ex post environmental impacts of agricultural research with high relevance to the CGIAR’s mandate
• Advancing SPIA’s guidelines for conducting ex post IA, with particular emphasis on environmental impacts seeking, where possible, to build on earlier economic impact assessments resulting in more comprehensive (integrated) assessments of impact.
• Providing results of environmental impacts from a range of case studies reflecting different types of research within the CGIAR and their differential impacts

Phase one of this study was completed with the finalization of two consultancy reports after peer review. One of these was a scoping study that reviewed the state of arts in environmental impact assessment, and proposing an approach to measuring and quantifying environmental impacts through extended cost-benefit analysis, where revealed and stated preferences are used to capture / estimate non-market benefits and costs.

• Research design in assessing the social and environmental impacts of agricultural research. Göran Djurfeldt, Torbjörn Fagerström, Axel Fredholm. (Final draft)
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• Advancing Ex-Post Impact Assessment of Environmental and Social Impacts of CGIAR Research. Jeff Bennett
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Phase 2: 2009-2010

i) Case-studies

In April 2009 SPIA developed and circulated a proposal for moving forward with Phase two – by eliciting environmental impact assessment (EIA) case study concept notes from CGIAR centers. The SPIA Chair sent invitations to all Director Generals and Challenge Program leaders. Eleven proposals were received and externally peer reviewed by a panel of six, of which SPIA selected five for inclusion in the study (a sixth was later included). They are:

• IWMI: Estimating the Value of Improvements in Environmental Quality Due to Changes in Sluice Gate Operations in Bac Lieu Province, Vietnam (pdf)
• CIP: Potato crop improvement and biodiversity conservation trade-offs in the Andes (pdf)
• ICARDA: Economic and Environmental Impacts of Supplemental Irrigation in Rain-Fed Agriculture: the Case of Wheat in Syria (pdf)
• ICAR: Environmental impact of resource conservation technology: the case of zero-tillage in the rice-wheat system of South Asia (pdf)
• World Agroforestry Center: Profitability and environmental effects of intensification of rubber agroforestry in Indonesia (incomplete)
• CIAT: Cultivating beans in Africa: Good for soil health and carbon stocks (incomplete)

ii) Literature review of past CGIAR EIA studies and analytical framework for the future

SPIA commissioned a paper in January 2010 to review the literature from the CGIAR and selected studies from other organisations, on the environmental impacts of agricultural research. The final version from the author, Mitch Renkow, is available here (pdf)

iii) Agricultural research and land-use change

SPIA has reviewed the complex literature linking technological change in agriculture and land-use change. In addition, working with Nelson Villoria at Purdue University using the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model, we have estimated the long-run global impacts on land-cover change of crop germplasm improvement. These are re-estimates of the work carried out by Evenson and Rosegrant using IFPRI's International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT - see chapter 23 in this book).

Supporting materials from the modelling work carried out by Villoria are available here (pdf, February 2011)