A changing regulatory environment and growing awareness are driving the need for specialised crop improvement in organic agriculture. While considerable research has been done assessing the returns to conventional breeding, evidence on the economic effects of research and development in organic breeding is clearly lacking. Therefore, the proposed project will quantify the overall economic impacts of organic breeding, using the example of the Wiwa crop variety. Besides a new thematic focus, the research will test a novel quantification methodology. By integrating a full cost accounting perspective into the economic surplus method and comparing the enhanced approach with the standard methodology, important insights can be gained for the future application of the economic surplus method when assessing the economic returns of crop improvement. A nominal group technique with experts from the H2020 Liveseed project is suggested to value external benefits and costs for inclusion in the impact assessment model. Participation in relevant networks ensures close collaboration with breeding specialists.
