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This paper assesses the potential economic impacts of Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) conceived to address observed low productivity, prevailing poverty level, slow growth and general underperformance of the agricultural sector associated with the traditional agricultural and rural development (ARD) approach. The economic surplus analysis suggested that IAR4D research and extension, with respect to maize production, could achieve returns ranging from 30 to 38 per cent and a maximum adoption of 25 to 50 per cent for the conservative and baseline scenario, respectively. Similarly, with the same range of maximum adoption, the approach could yield returns ranging from 22 to 29 per cent for the conservative and baseline scenario, respectively in millet production. However, the same range of adoption could result in 29 to 37 per cent for the conservative and baseline scenario, respectively in sorghum production. The estimated benefits are sensitive to expected adoption rates but much less so to changes in research and extension costs. However, the estimates indicate that the production of all the crops was socially profitable under the IAR4D option. Our results were consistent with earlier economic analyses which showed that IAR4D was more productive, profitable and acceptable to farmers than the conventional Research for Development (R&D) approach.

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