Economic Potential for Nutritional Improvement in Feed Grains

Feed grains researchers have abundant technical opportunities to select various options for improvement of nutritional characteristics of feed grains. Choosing between those opportunities is a difficult issue for research funding organisations. In this paper, efforts to address the relative economic benefits from the different options for feed grains nutritional improvement are reported. The economic benefits arising from nutritional improvements in various feed grains are examined and compared to the benefits from increasing yields of the feed grains rather than improving their nutritional value. The results of the analysis of these options are presented in an economic surplus framework that enables the major beneficiaries and the relative gains for the different feed grains research options to be identified. The outcome of this analysis provides a basis for establishing priorities for feed grains research.