Agricultural researchers everywhere are under pressure to show the impact of their work. Within the CRSP there has been an intense debate on how impact should be measured. At a workshop in 1997, at Clemson University, CRSP social scientists working in West Africa agreed on a common approach for economic impact assessment. Dr. Brenda Vander Mey, Clemson, is coordinating developing social, environmental indices of impact. At the Accra Cowpea Utilization Conference in 1999, Lowenberg-DeBoer outlined need for impact assessment for food utilization research.

There is a substantial history of economic impact assessment for cowpea research in West Africa. Mazzucato and Ly (1992) estimated the return to cowpea, sorghum and millet research in Niger in the range of 2% to 20%, with most of the benefit coming from improved cowpea varieties. Schwarz et al. (1993) studied the returns to cowpea research, extension and imput distribution in Senegal and estimated a rate of return between 31% and 92%. Sterns and Bernstein (1994) estimated the returns to cowpea varietal and agronomic research at 15%. Sanders, Bezuneh and Schroeder (1994) estimated the monetary benefits of SAFGRAD cowpea research and extension in Burkina Faso and Mali in the range of $800,000 to $4.8 million annually.

Economic impact assessments are being prepared of varietal improvement and storage research and extension in Senegal and Cameroon. Adoption surveys in Senegal indicate that the drum storage technique developed by the ISRA/CRSP partnership is used for most cowpea grain stored in the main growing region and that the improved varieties are much appreciated by farmers, especially for use as a green vegetable. Preliminary impact assessment results from Senegal indicate that without the benefits of Operation Cowpea previously analyzed by Schwarz et al. (1993), the rate of return to cowpea varietal and storage research in Senegal is about 16% annually. A preliminary impact assessment in Cameroon, indicates that returns to storage research since about 1987 are about 22% annually.

Cowpea impact assessment documents available at this site are:

• Bean/Cowpea CRSP West Africa Regional Facilitator Report, Fiscal Year 1996

• Bean/Cowpea CRSP Social Science Report for West Africa, April, 1997-Sept. 1998

• Cowpea production and price data for Cameroon

• Cowpea production and price data for Ghana

• Cowpea production and price data for Senegal

References for cowpea impact assessment:

Mazzucato, Valentina and Samba Ly, "An Economic Analysis of Research and Technology Transfer of Millet, Sorghum and Cowpeas in Niger," ISNAR, The Hague, Netherlands, Nov., 1992.

Sanders, John, Taye Bezuneh and Alan C. Schroeder, "Impact Assessment of the SAFGRAD Commodity Networks," USAID/AFR, OAU/STRC-SAFGRAD, January, 1994.

Schwarz, Lisa A., James A. Sterns and James F. Oehmke, "Economic returns to cowpea research, extension and input distribution in Senegal," Agricultural Economics, 8 (1993), p. 161-171.

Sterns, James A. and Richard H. Bernstein, "Assessing the Impact of Cowpea and Sorghum Research and Extension in Northern Cameroon," Michigan State University, International Development Working Papers, No. 43, 1994.