Working Group Two: Asia¹

Tasks One and Two
Task Three

¹ The participants in this group were: M Young (Chairman); C Devendra (Rapporteur); C Chantalakhana; C de Haan; M Jabbar; T Komiyama; S Mack; V Ostergaard; M Mohammed-Saleem

Tasks One and Two

Discussion focused attention on the three major agroecological zones, the humid and subhumid, the arid and semiarid and the highlands zones.

Analysis of trends over the recent past and expectations and identification of opportunities for the future could only be covered superficially. The working group did observe, however, that:

· investment in livestock research and development has been falling in Southeast Asia but the rate of decline is expected to slow down in the future;

· human populations are expected to rise rapidly but this will be accompanied by an increase in average income;

· the rapid rate of increase in cropped area is not expected to continue and that early in the 21st century a change to tree crops expansion in the areas of oil palm, rubber and citrus fruits may even reduce the total crop area; and

· increases in livestock numbers will mainly be in pigs and poultry.

Task Three

The emphasis was on opportunities, constraints affecting them and supporting research and development strategies in order to define broad priority research areas and move from there to development issues. Six major research areas were identified (Table 1) within which specific issues were further indicated. Research areas are ranked in order of importance and within each the magnitude of a particular constraint is further identified with a score assigned for the amount of research needed.

Development priorities

Development must be a partner in research. If both research and development efforts focus on defined problems the outcome for farmers and herders on low incomes is likely to be a significant increase in productivity. The focus, consistent with recommendations elsewhere, is on lowland rainfed systems. The core development themes could be:

· community development supported by research on alternative network options and initiatives to encourage local groups to improve the productivity of the resources they manage;

· applied research and technology transfer with a view to substantially improving linkages between research and extension, increasing the efficiency of extension and using this process to adapt strategic research findings to local conditions;

· price policy so that the probability of adoption of general recommendations arising from pure policy research is high.

Table 1 Research areas and priority ratings in Asia

Research area	Zonea)
	Humid/subhumid	Arid/semiarid	Highlands
Feeds
Production	+	+ + +	+ + +
Conservation	+ +	-	+ +
Utilization	+ + +	+ +	+ +
Systems
Dynamics	+	+ +	+ +
Animal movement	-	+ + +	+ + +
Watershed management	+	-	+ +
Environment/Indicators	+	+	+
Orientation/Methodology	+ +	+ +	+ +
Research capacityb)	+ + +	+	+
Genetics
Animals	+	+ +	+
Plants	+	+	+
Policy
Domestic, including sequencing	++	+	++
Socio-economics
Scenarios	+ +	+ +	+ +
Community development	+	+	+
Health policy	+	+	+

Notes:
a) + + + most resources needed; + + average resources; + least resources
b) the combination of existing capacity and its use for technology transfer in a systems approach

Linkages between research and extension could be further strengthened by setting firm time specific targets. Research partnerships, for example, could aim to develop the means to achieve a five per cent improvement in livestock productivity by 1999 and developers to extend this gain to, say, six other areas by 2005. Field rather than station research might be an important element in the pursuit of such targets.

Implementation strategies

From an Asian livestock perspective it is clear that the efficiency of many research and extension programmes is low. It is consequently recommended that attention be given to the development of indicators of effectiveness so that there will be faster transfer of potential benefits at less cost. It is considered, however, that this is a global problem and would be more effectively approached as such.

A parallel problem is lack of awareness of emerging research technologies and methodologies among scientists working on core problems. This is particularly so in the suggested focus on the development of systems thinking and integrated systems. It may be useful to invite experts in these disciplines to provide short courses with a view to training people in the emerging techniques so that an understanding of ecosystem processes can be gained.

A third consideration is the need for a forum to bring together research and development specialists that for Asia or by theme would:

· develop draft proposals;
· acts as a coordinating body; and
· evaluate and/or supervise projects where this is appropriate.

In all these developments maximum use should be made of existing bodies and structures.