9. Role of research in global food
security and agricultural
development

Technical background document
Executive summary
FAO, 1996

Contents

Acknowledgements
Executive summary

1. INTRODUCTION

2. THE TRACK RECORD OF AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

Returns to agricultural research

3. IMPLICATIONS FOR FUNDING AND INSTITUTIONAL REFORMS

Recent trends in funding agricultural research

4. THE SCIENTIFIC ENVIRONMENT

The prospects of science

5. THE AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AGENDA FOR THE NEXT DECADE

Crops
Forestry and agroforestry
Fisheries
Integrated approaches

6. AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AS A PRIORITY

The continuing need for agricultural research
Setting the research agenda

7. BUILDING THE GLOBAL AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SYSTEM

National agricultural research systems of developing countries
National agricultural research systems of developed countries
International agricultural research centres
Linking global research partners

8. CONCLUSIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Acknowledgements

The preparation of the World Food Summit technical background documents has mobilized, in addition to FAO’s own staff contributions, a considerable amount of expertise in the international scientific community, drawn from partner international institutions and governmental or non-governmental circles. The process has been monitored at FAO by an internal Reading Committee, composed of staff selected ad personam and established to ensure that the whole collection meets appropriate quality and consistency criteria.

The present document has been prepared as a joint effort of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the World Bank and FAO, two of the CGIAR’s co-sponsors. Major contributions from the Agricultural Research and Extension Group, Environmentally Sustainable Development Vice Presidency of the World Bank (USDAR), the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of the CGIAR, the TAC Secretariat and the CGIAR Secretariat form the backbone of this document, which has been collated by Stein W. Bie of FAO.

While grateful for all the contributions received, the FAO Secretariat bears responsibility for the content of the document.

Executive summary

Agricultural research has played a crucial role in food security and agricultural development by increasing agricultural production to meet the food needs of a rapidly growing population. The major progress in yields of cereals and other crops, livestock and farmed fish has been the key contribution to the 80 percent increase in global food output since the mid-1960s.

Despite the fact that world food supplies have grown faster than population, persisting problems of poverty and malnutrition result in nearly 20 percent of the inhabitants of developing countries being undernourished. Lack of access to food persists even when food is available on the market. In order to supply food for and reduce poverty in a global population expected to reach 8.3 billion by the year 2025, and with ever higher pressures on the resource base, the world will need substantial increases in agricultural productivity.

Science-based agricultural technologies, developed through agricultural research, are essential to increasing productivity while maintaining or, better, improving the sustainability of natural resources and the environment. Social sciences must provide stronger support to policy developments that can ensure better equity and access to food.

These challenges notwithstanding, investments in the natural and social sciences for agriculture and rural development have decreased in most industrialized and developing countries during the last decade, in spite of clear indications of their large returns to society, both directly and through upturns in rural-based economies and links to urban centres. There is a real concern that past advances in agricultural productivity cannot be maintained, and that agriculture in developing countries will be bypassed in new scientific thrusts that do not relate to the needs of food-insecure people.

The agricultural research agenda must respond to the problems of food insecurity, of poverty and of resource and environmental degradation. It will be shaped by the choices of research investments and strategies made by governments and institutions in both developed and developing countries, taking full account of the division of research interests between the private and public sectors. This paper points to three main thrusts for research intended to reduce food insecurity. It focuses specifically on areas of particular concern to developing countries:

• Targeted public research efforts and encouragements and incentives to private research are needed to resolve specific bottlenecks for productivity increases in key crops, livestock and farmed fish, particularly those on which poor people rely, and in farming systems that are relevant for their food production. This paper examines the specific research challenges over the next ten years for 20 key crop commodities, and for livestock and farmed fish, in order to stimulate national and international research communities, public and private, to devote efforts to meeting these challenges.
• In addition to discipline-oriented research, emphasis must be placed on more holistic research themes that explore the linkages between crops, livestock, fish and forests, with reference to human health, equity, gender and the wise use of natural resources, including water and soil. Sustainable agricultural development requires the recognition of this additional and holistic dimension in research. Research themes must also take cognizance of the reality that many small and poor farmers do not have easy access to external inputs that may allow for technological changes in agricultural production.
• Policy research needs to be pursued at both national and international levels to identify broader constraints on agricultural progress resulting from misguided or simply counterproductive policies. Socio-economic and policy research can contribute to prioritizing research agendas and to educating policy-makers on both the consequences of bad policies and the importance of agricultural research in solving national problems of food security and poverty. Major changes in market conditions, policy environment, private-sector involvement, farmers’ awareness and degree of collective organization, as well as donor priorities, have profoundly affected the face of agricultural research in recent years; they must be understood and addressed. While agriculture cannot solve the poverty problem alone, national policies aimed at increasing both production and access to food are equally important keys for improved food security.

National agricultural research systems (NARS) – including government-based institutions, universities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and, increasingly, private industry – are and will continue to be the cornerstone of the global agricultural research system. They alone can be responsible for addressing the range of productivity and sustainability issues in their own countries. Given the diverse nature of agro-ecological conditions and the location-specificity of small-farm production and natural-resource management problems, NARS must play an even larger role as the interface between the global agricultural research system, of which they are a component, and farmers and other natural-resource users. The success of the global agricultural research system is dependent upon a strong national research capacity, complemented by an effective technology transfer mechanism. Strong partnerships among NARS, between them and regional and international research institutes, including those of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), constitute the other main condition for increasing the efficiency of the global research system.

Increasingly, private industry is becoming involved with agricultural research, for example, through the application of biotechnology to agriculture. Research efforts within the agrochemical industries and those concerned with farm implements also continue to be based mainly in the private sector of industrialized countries. Lack of sufficient economic incentives for private-sector research to generate technologies in developing countries has been combined in recent years with a general decline in the international involvement of developed-country NARS. These trends must be reversed. It is essential that financial support to agricultural research in developing countries be significantly increased, but increased funding will not suffice: profound institutional reforms are also required. In parallel, stable and significant funding of the international centres of the CGIAR must be ensured. It is also necessary to mobilize the large reservoir of human resources available in the industrialized countries for this task. These resources must not be allowed to erode when faced with the global challenge for food security.

A carefully drafted and delivered agricultural research agenda for food security, in its widest sense, with determined backing from all developing and industrialized countries, government and private sectors alike, is one of the best tools that the global community can devise for contributing to food security during the next two to three decades.