No abstract

AVRDC-The World Vegetable Center maintains the world's largest international public collection of vegetable genetic resources at its headquarters in Taiwan. The ex situ conservation and dissemination of germplasm to researchers and breeders worldwide contributes to global food and nutrition security but also carries considerable costs. The objective of this study is to quantify these costs for the 12-month period from September 2011 to August 2012 using the Decision Support Tool developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute. The results show that the present value of capital assets is USD 1.99 million for the facilities and USD 0.48 million for the equipment. The total annual cost is USD 0.684 million, of which 74 % are labor costs. The average conservation and dissemination cost per accession is USD 10.08 per year. Seed regeneration, seed processing, characterization, and seed dissemination are the four most costly operations of the genebank. The storage itself only contributes 17 % of the cost. In comparison, the average cost per accession is USD 5.15 at ICARDA, USD 6.84 at CIMMYT, USD 8.62 at ICRISAT, USD 9.19 at IRRI, and USD 22.52 at CIAT (in 2012 US dollar values). High labor costs in Taiwan increase AVRDC's average cost, but the fact that more vegetable species are selfpollinating and thus less labor intensive to regenerate than cross-pollinating species keeps the average costs in check. These results are important benchmarks for other genebanks.

Vegetable legumes are important crops in tropical agriculture, but they are susceptible to a substantial number of arthropod pests and plant diseases. Using farm-level survey data for 240 farm households growing yard-long bean (Vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis) in Thailand and Vietnam, this study shows that farmers' main problem is the legume pod borer (Maruca vitrata). Farmers heavily rely on the use of synthetic pesticides to manage this pest and no other control methods are generally used. Small cultivated areas under yard-long bean (particularly in Vietnam), a high level of satisfaction with pesticides, and a lack of market demand for pesticide-free produce are formidable challenges for the introduction of integrated pest management (IPM). It is important that IPM methods, if they are to be adopted by farmers, do not reduce profits and that farmers can experiment with these methods while awareness is raised about the risk of pesticide exposure in the general population.