The Benefits of Public Rice Breeding

In this study, we estimate increases in producer revenue from the genetic gains of the rice breeding program at the University of Arkansas (UofA) Division of Agriculture from 1983 – 2016. Rice producers are paid based on both the quantity of rice and the quality of rice. Therefore, we implement a cluster specific fixed-effects model based on location and year to identify the contributions of the UofA breeding program for both paddy yields (quantity) and head rice yields (quality attribute) over time. Including spillover benefits from all UofA varieties, we find that on average US rice producers gain 30.9 million USD annually from the adoption of UofA rice varieties