Summary

The project will undertake an economic evaluation of a population of 19 R&D projects (13 completed with final reports) funded by the ginger industry and RIRDC. All projects funded since the Program commenced in 2012/2013 will be included. All projects will be individually described in terms of their outputs, outcomes and impacts and a triple bottom line description of impacts will be presented. The quantitative analysis will build on the qualitative analyses by valuing, in $ terms, some of the economic, environmental and social impacts identified. This analysis will apply to the total population of projects and will include appropriate investment criteria (e.g. present value of benefits, present value of costs, benefit-cost ratio, net present values, internal rate of return and modified internal rate of return). Two sets of investment criteria will be provided; one set will be estimated by comparing the benefits from the impacts valued with the total investment in the 19 projects; a second set will be estimated by comparing the impacts valued with the costs of only the projects where impacts were valued. These two sets of investment criteria will therefore provide both a lower and an upper bound of the value of investment in ginger R&D.
In addition, the relative contribution of the different types of impacts to the value of all impacts valued will provide one source of guidance to the direction of any future investment in ginger R&D.

Program

Ginger

Research Organisation

Agtrans Research

Objective Summary

1. Define the population of projects funded by the Ginger Program.
2. Describe each project in terms of its rationale, objectives, activities and outputs, and outcomes and impacts.
3. Identify and describe the impacts of the investment across the industry and community in a triple bottom line framework.
4. Value the impacts emanating from selected projects and conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the value of those impacts against the cost of these projects.
5. Carry out a cost-benefit analysis using the impacts valued compared with the total investment in the project population.
6. Produce an economic evaluation report for RIRDC.