The first paper of this thesis seeks to clarify the economic benefits of staple crop biofortification and accomplishes this through the utilization of cost-benefit analysis, DALYs (disability adjusted life years concept), and analysis of economic surplus. The first paper finds that health problems related to iron deficiency and vitamin A can be cost-efficiently reduced through biofortification of cassava in Kenya and Nigeria. The second paper studies the economic impact of conservation agriculture in Ecuador and the researcher utilizes a linear programming model to show that certain conservation agriculture endeavors can increase household income for farmers.