An Economic Analysis of Potential Changes to a Rice Breeding Program

Rice breeders and their administrators face difficult decisions regarding the most appropriate methods and approaches to use in their breeding programs. In this paper, economic principles are used to evaluate and compare the gains from different plant breeding programs or differently structured programs. By identifying the costs of potential changes and estimating the expected returns from proposed·programs, investment criteria are used to evaluate the efficiency of shifts in resources within the breeding program. The information generated enables the rice breeders at Yanco to adjust the existing breeding program to provide the Australian rice industry with relatively higher returns