The need to address extreme poverty from the perspective of marginality arises from the frustration that the number of the poorest and hungry remains unacceptably high. This triggered the call for an innovative approach from the side of science and action. The conceptual and analytical framework...

The Mama Lus Frut scheme was established to increase the productivity of smallholder palm-oil plantations in Papua New Guinea. ACIAR project ASEM/1999/084, ‘Improving Productivity of the Smallholder Oil Palm Sector in Papua New Guinea: a Study of Biophysical and Socioeconomic Interactions’,...

The use of mobile phones in poverty reduction and development has ignited much interest over the past decade. To take advantage of the rapid expansion of mobile phones in developing countries, businesses, government agencies and non-governmental organisations are increasingly turning their...

Healthy land ecosystems are essential to sustainable development, including food security and improved livelihoods. Yet, their key services have usually been taken for granted and their true value underrated, leading to land degradation becoming a critical global problem. This pattern of...

Healthy soils are essential for sustaining economies and human livelihoods. In spite of this, the key ecosystem services provided by soils have usually been taken for granted and their true value – beyond market value – is being underrated. This pattern of undervaluation of soils is about to...

Project PHT/1990/035, ‘Integrating Grain Protectants into Storage Pest Management’ was supported by ACIAR for nearly four years from 1992 to 1995. The project was based in China and Australia. Project activity within Australia included the further enhancement of an expert system that had...

Larvae of the butterfly Erionota thrax, the banana skipper, destroy the leaves of bananas by eating them and forming massive protective rolls of leaf tissue. They were first observed in north-western Papua New Guinea in 1983 and over the next 6 years spread throughout the mainland at the rate of...

This report sets out some broad ideas about how poverty evaluation could be conducted for ACIAR research projects. As with good benefit–cost analysis, there are good practices that need to be observed when undertaking poverty analysis. While poverty is a broad concept, and can be addressed...

An economic evaluation of three ACIAR projects whose primary objective was to improve postharvest grain drying in Thailand and Australia is provided in this report. During 1983–1996, ACIAR invested A$1.2 million in research designed to improve grain drying in these countries. Based on current...

Between 1983 and 1992, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) invested A$3 million in research to find a vaccine that could provide protection from Newcastle disease in chickens and be applied in village environments in developing countries. A further $160 000 was...