The economic costs and benefits of a participatory project to conserve maize landraces on farms in Oaxaca, Mexico
评估了一个参与式作物改良项目对墨西哥农民继续种植玉米地方品种的经济影响，发现农民收益成本比高但私人投资者回报低，且存在性别偏差和福利转移。
Conventional methods were used to assess the benefits and costs of an unconventional project whose purpose was to test whether participatory crop improvement can encourage Mexican farmers to continue growing maize landraces by enhancing their current use value. Findings suggest that farmers as a group earned a high benefit-cost ratio from participating, though from the perspective of the private investor the returns were low. The project also generated social benefits, but these would be difficult (and costly) to measure. There was a gender bias in both participation and benefits distributions, though there is some evidence of a welfare transfer to maize deficit households. Application of other valuation approaches will be necessary in order to assess both the private and social benefits of similar projects. © 2003 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.