THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF PLANT GENETIC RESOURCES FOR AGRICULTURE

In the last few decades a considerable effort has been devoted to the collection, the storage in gene banks and to trait valuation of the major cultivated species and of their wild progenitors (FAO, 1996). The economic value of this wealth has recently increased following the development of biotechnology techniques that have made possible the free flow of genes across species and therefore open new venues to the improvement of cultivated varieties.

Approaches to justify the activity of conservation of genetic resources are usually based upon ethical or utilitarian motivations. The economists generally assume that this activity generates benefits but at the same time it requires costs. Therefore there exist an optimal level of conservation behind which additional marginal benefits are not justified by the incremental costs that are required to obtain them.

The identification of this equilibrium point is a prerequisite to the formulation of policy advice on PGR use and conservation. This helps explain the emphasis placed by economists on the aspects that are related to the valuation of the PGR and of the real resources needed to conserve them.

Biologists, conservationists etc. are also engaged in some kind of valuation of species and genetic resources. A source of potential disagreement among these groups and economists, however, resides in the acknowledgement by the economists of the existence of substitutes.

While non economists tend to attribute «existence» value to genetic resources, economists tend to emphasise their «use» value, i.e. their capacity to perform a given task and therefore to produce utility. From this it follows that the value of a specific genetic resource depends, also, upon the existence of other genetic resources able to perform the same or similar task, or from the existence of the same resource in an other species or variety.

In the case of PGRA for agriculture one of those task is to provide insurance against massive crop failures. Genetic diversity in fact offers the opportunity to cushion against biotic or abiotic stresses and/or it provides the opportunity to create new varieties that could supply adequate protection against potential production problems that could develop in the future.

In this paper we address three aspects related to PGRA. In part one we cover the problems related to the use of traditional or farmers varieties versus modern varieties and the effects that their introduction has supposedly had on genetic biodiversity. In part two we examine the issue of in situ versus ex situ conservation and the need to complement the two approaches. In the third session we offer a rapid overview of the alternative methods that have been proposed to value genetic resources.

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