6.1. Introduction
6.2. Sectors
6.3. Commodities
6.4. Concluding Remarks
The major elements underlying TAC's assessments of priorities for commodities and sectors were the locus and level of future poverty; likely alternative sources of supply; probabilities of success, especially as influenced by the findings of new science; and current allocations. Earlier chapters have treated each of these elements. Clearly, TAC's findings on activities, as related in Chapter 5, also had implications for its reflections on the themes of this chapter. TAC has had extended discussion on the commodities and sectors of direct interest to the System, with special emphasis on the role of poverty in shaping priorities.
Estimated future incomes have a considerable influence on the analysis. Past efforts on priority setting have rested largely on existing levels of income and poverty. Given that the work of the System is future oriented and that ever more reliable estimates of important parameters are available, TAC now focuses more attention on the future. It will be seen in what follows that the influence of some countries, hence of commodities of relative importance there, declines notably because of the expected rapid growth in their incomes. However, it is stressed that such countries will continue to have access to the products of the CGIAR, even thought they will have less prominence in setting the CGIAR's priorities. Moreover, they will influence CGIAR priorities through their role as alternative suppliers.
Tables presented in Annex II offer the opportunity to compare the effects of projected income with that of the two other dimensions of the poverty indicator (that for the depth of poverty and that for eliminating the country entirely from the poverty-weighted value of production). TAC re-emphasizes that poverty weighted values of production were but one element in a process that included qualitative variables as well. Even so, the poverty weighted index was an important element informing judgement and its role in guiding convergence was significant.
Individual commodities are at the heart of the work of twelve centres and a portion of the work of a thirteenth (IPGRI). Four centres (IFPRI, IIMI, and ISNAR along with much of IPGRI) are engaged in generic work, relevant to, but not tied to commodities, except in a generic sense. For these centres, priorities emerged largely from the considerations influencing activities (see Chapter 5).
Manifesting the Group's concern for poverty alleviation and the Group's judgement that the current allocations are an appropriate point of departure for rebalancing resource allocations, TAC turned its attention to commodities, where the poverty indicator can be applied quantitatively. For each, the initial element in setting priorities was the comparison between current allocations and the estimated poverty weighted share in 2010. (See Chapter 3 and Annex 2 of the report on CGIAR Priorities and Strategies 1997 (P&S97). The general rule for commodities adopted at TAC 72 was to move half the distance between the current allocation and the allocation implied by the poverty weighted share, subject to further modification by qualitative considerations.
Initially, TAC had expected to treat all of the commodities in the same way, in the sense of applying a common poverty weighted format to each. A careful review of supporting data, especially that pertaining to prices, suggested that this approach was not viable. Examination of the price data suggested that aquatic products and forestry products were over valued relative to livestock and crops. For the former, data are based on current prices while, for the latter, FAO's standardized data have been adjusted to reflect purchasing power parity differences among countries. While the amount of the over valuation for fish and forestry is not known, it was believed that a poverty weighted share calculated with the FAO method would still be above current allocations to either set of products, but less so than implied by, e.g., Table 1, Annex 2. The conclusion was that the fish and forestry sectors would have to be treated differently than the other sectors.
The livestock sector presented a further conundrum. TAC has long advocated an increase in its portion of CGIAR expenditures, which is well below its apparent poverty weighted share, but support has not been forthcoming. Even in 1997, there is evidence that expenditures on livestock will finish the year at well below recommended levels and still further below the levels indicated by its poverty weighted share (see Table 1 following).
These considerations led TAC to focus first on sectors and to then move to crop commodities in setting priorities. Working with others, TAC expects to see the development of data sets that will make it possible to treat all sectors on the same footing. For now, however, the balance among quantitative and qualitative considerations is necessarily different, relatively more of the first with respect to crops and relatively more of the second with respect to fish, forestry, and livestock.
Before turning to the considerations that shaped the balance among the sectors and even with the recognition that comparisons among sectors are limited by the differing sources of price data, it is nonetheless suggestive to review the effects of sensitivity analysis on the apparent balance among sectors. The point is that while absolute levels are not adequately estimated, it is interesting to review the consequences within a sector of changes in relative levels in the values of important parameters described in Annex 2. What is notable there (see Table 1, Annex 2) is that, in comparison with the Base Model (found in column 3) only changes in the threshold value of income (see column 7) have any discernible effect on the apparent share associated with the sectors. This finding implies that discussion of sector shares need not be complicated by questions about rates of growth, income distribution, or the other themes treated in the table. (Again, some of these themes might well be important at the centre level, but they are not evidently so at the sector level.)
TAC 72 reinforced the view expressed in the 1996 MTM presentation to the Group about the importance of expanding the CGIAR's work in water resource management, in forestry, and in aquatic resources. The System's work in these areas is relatively recent and most of the associated centres are relatively small. Presentations by the newest centres at TAC 72 gave convincing evidence of their capacity to effectively manage more resources and of the opportunities that might be opened up. It was noted that there are few substitutes for the CGIAR's work in these areas. Few agencies have developed the capacities and orientation seen in the centres involved.
In terms of new science, all sectors and centres benefit and it is clear that new science makes the CGIAR an even better place to invest. Relative to one and other, however, there are some differences. It appears that applications to germplasm improvement are more notable than those pertaining to natural resource management. In terms of alternative sources of supply and the work of the CGIAR, it appears that these are relatively more available for crops and livestock than for the work the System is doing in fish and forestry. In this last, it appears that the CGIAR's research is showing signs of world leadership in work with global relevance. Examples include the development of criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management and advances in understanding competition between woody and herbaceous plants.
In capture fisheries, fish stock assessment techniques, including determination of age and length, are indispensable for rational management. In moderate climates, due to seasonal differences in growth rate, ageing of fish is relatively simple and has been common practice for decades, but in tropical climates ageing proved much more difficult because season induced growth differences occur hardly or not at all. However, in recent years, technologies have been developed that enable fisheries scientists to determine the age of tropical fish with great accuracy. This break-through will prove a powerful tool in the characterization of tropical fish stocks and, thereby, contribute substantially to their sustainable utilization.
In aquaculture research, the fact that the main scientific advances to date have occurred in the crop and livestock sectors provides the opportunity for very rapid catch-up. Application of marker assisted breeding, gynogenesis and androgenesis in fish can contribute to the selection of future fish breeds with desirable traits in, for instance, growth and disease resistance as well as to the control of the sex of the target species in aquaculture operations. Recent scientific developments in elucidating the immunological performance of fish (and shrimp) open promising venues to combine genetic selection and vaccination in order to achieve more sustainable health control measures in aquaculture.
Against this background TAC endorsed an increase in the portion of the expenditures related to fish (hence to the portion related to ICLARM). Currently the portion is 3.5%; TAC recommends an increase to 4.2%.
For forestry, TAC noted that four centres are involved in this sector - CIFOR and ICRAF fully and ICRISAT and IPGRI partially. TAC 72 was supportive of CIFOR's planned expansion and endorsed support to US$ 16.5 million. For ICRAF, TAC 72 noted that it expects a strong increase in support during 1997, on the order of 30% is projected. For the immediate future TAC was concerned about the centre's capacity to manage explosive growth, saw advantage in consolidating its work, and would welcome evidence of broad based impact or its promise. With those considerations in mind, TAC recommended that ICRAF's expenditures in 2000 not exceed US$ 24.3 million, some US$ 2 million above its projected expenditures in 1997. Assuming that ICRISAT and IPGRI's expenditures in forestry grow along with the CGIAR's total expenditures, the result is that forestry will occupy 12.2 of the System's expenditures in 2000. ICRAF's projected expansion aside, this represents a healthy increase for forestry; with that increase included, it maintains the sector's already sharply increased 1997 share.
Reviewing the livestock sector, TAC again expressed its sense of the importance of this work and wondered at the current levels of investment as contrasted with the sector's poverty share relative to crops.
The potential impact of new science is as dramatic here as for crops, and stronger than for fisheries and forestry, albeit based on the extensively supported work focused on humans. Two developments exemplify the implications. Mapping of the human genome can help in locating genes of importance in breeding domestic livestock for a variety of useful traits. Medical research on microbiology and immunology, especially as it relates to viruses, advance generic understanding. Ahead, there is the potential for results in work fields such as the regulation of energy balance in humans to spill over into animal science. The opportunities are clearly there. Initially, discussion concluded with a recommendation that the sector's share of total expenditures be increased by 2%. Further consideration suggested that the increase be 1.5% above the expenditure level in 1997. This recommendation has strong implications for expenditures by ILRI and lesser but significant implications for ICARDA and CIAT, and marginal implications for ICRISAT.
In 1997 the expenditures directly related to commodities and sectors involved 85% of the total. TAC's concerns with water, research management, policy, and with biodiversity led to a slight decrease in that proportion. The combination of these considerations led to a modest reduction in the allocation to crops. Given the sense that crops will benefit relatively more from new science than will other sectors this might seem an anomalous outcome. However, those implications will be of greatest benefit to germplasm improvement and TAC is advocating that, within crops, there be a strong increase in funding to this activity, especially in pre-breeding.
Table 6.1: Sector expenditure, apparent poverty weighted shares and TAC recommendation by sector
|
|
1997 |
Base Model |
TAC Recommendation |
|
(1) |
(2) |
(3) |
|
|
CROPS |
68.6 |
50.4 |
66.2 |
|
FISH |
4.2 |
5.6* |
4.9 |
|
FORESTRY |
10.8** |
23.1* |
12.2 |
|
LIVESTOCK |
16.4** |
21.0 |
16.7 |
|
Notes to columns: 1) From CGIAR Secretariat Analysis of CG Resource Allocation 1997. |
|||
The results of these deliberations about sectors are reflected in Table 1. There, TAC's recommendations about allocations for 2000 can be compared with current allocations.
Much information about crop commodities is available in Annex 2 (current and projected levels of the value of production and poverty weighted values of production for various categories) and Annex 3 (importance and strategic directions provided by centres). Table 2 (Column 1) in this chapter shows the 1997 commitment to each sector along with other information that pertains to decision variables employed in shaping priorities.
Table 6.2: Expenditure, poverty weighted shares, and implications for resource assignments by crop commodity
|
Commodities |
1997 |
Base Model |
Base Model Amended, % |
General Rule |
Major Qualitative Considerations |
|
(1) |
(2) |
(3) |
(4) |
(5) |
|
|
ASS/OTHER |
|||||
|
Banana & Plantain |
4.5 |
5.2 |
5.5 |
5.0 |
+ + |
|
Barley |
2.2 |
1.2 |
1.3 |
1.7 |
|
|
Beans |
8.6 |
4.0 |
4.3 |
6.4 |
|
|
Cassava |
8.9 |
5.6 |
6.0 |
7.4 |
+ + (SSA) |
|
Chickpea |
3.5 |
2.6 |
2.8 |
3.1 |
|
|
Coconut |
0.3 |
1.4 |
1.5 |
0.9 |
|
|
Cowpea |
2.2 |
0.8 |
0.9 |
1.5 |
|
|
Groundnut |
4.1 |
6.3 |
4.1* |
4.1 |
- |
|
Lentil |
1.2 |
0.6 |
0.6 |
0.9 |
|
|
Maize |
12.0 |
9.1 |
9.8 |
10.9 |
-- (not SSA) |
|
Millet |
4.8 |
2.2 |
2.3 |
3.6 |
|
|
Pigeonpea |
0.7 |
1.0 |
1.1 |
0.9 |
|
|
Potato |
8.1 |
3.2 |
3.4 |
5.8 |
Disease + + |
|
Rice |
22.8 |
33.5 |
36.0 |
29.4 |
-- ASS |
|
Sorghum |
3.2 |
2.6 |
2.8 |
3.0 |
|
|
Soybean |
0.6 |
5.0 |
0.9* |
0.7 |
|
|
Sweet Potato |
2.9 |
2.0 |
2.1 |
2.5 |
|
|
Wheat |
8.4 |
11.7 |
12.6 |
10.5 |
- |
|
Yam |
1.3 |
2.0 |
2.1 |
1.7 |
|
|
Notes to columns: |
|||||
Before focusing on individual commodities there are several generic points to make. The first deals with science, the second with the introduction of new commodities, and the third relates to how changes in the parameters of the poverty indicator impacted on the individual commodities.
With respect to science, TAC is impressed by new developments in the work orienting the centres; some of these have been alluded to earlier. In the case of cereals, for example, recent findings from molecular biology about the similarity of the genomes promise more progress in pre-breeding and in germplasm enhancement than seemed attainable earlier. In turn, those findings suggest possibilities for other groups of crops. Wide crosses, especially those with wild relatives, are being utilized in ever broader ways and with notable success in the pursuit of host-plant resistance to important diseases. Earliness in plant growth habits has called attention to new possibilities, as the gains from new patterns of cropping far exceed the losses in yields accompanying earlier maturity. Finally, apomixis, with its implications for less expensive seed for such crops as maize, has moved from vague hope to distinct possibility. Again, with other things being equal, TAC sees continuing opportunities for poverty alleviation through increases in productivity across several of the CGIAR's crop commodities.
All centres engaged in work on crop commodities have access to powerful new tools. While it was felt earlier that cereals might have advantage over other groups, the longer run view is that there will be no notable differences among groups or crops except to the extent that the global effort gives rise to momentary advantage to one or the other. What is apparent is that there are now available a suite of techniques and equipment with affordable costs, resting on molecular applications, that confer great advantage in breeding (by lowering costs and speeding the work), and that all centres engaged in breeding work should exploit as a normal part of their operations. TAC noted as well that, beyond molecular applications, the commodity centres will benefit from new science in computation (e.g., GIS), satellite imagery, and information management.
An expansion in the CGIAR commodity portfolio was discussed. Several of the regional fora expressed the wish that the CGIAR add work on export and cash crops, on fruits and vegetables, and on medicinal plants, among others. TAC recalled that, in the past, it has made a distinction between commodity improvement programmes per se, and the work done through production systems and resource management. It also recalled that during the 1992 review of the future expansion of the CGIAR, TAC had recommended that vegetables be included in the CGIAR portfolio of commodities as soon as an effective mechanism was found to conduct such research. To date, no such mechanism has been identified and international vegetable research has remained outside of the CGIAR's work. At this point, TAC recommends no expansion in the CGIAR commodity improvement programmes per se, e.g. through breeding programmes. Given the limited amount of resources available, there is only restricted scope for such an expansion of the portfolio. Furthermore, none of the commodities proposed as candidates for inclusion in the CGIAR portfolio appear to meet all the necessary criteria, consisting of: importance for the poor, international public good and comparative advantage to the CGIAR, including opportunities for alternative sources of supply of research.. Moreover, some of these candidates are given attention now through production systems and ecoregional work of the centres. TAC would also encourage the centres to explore possible spillover effects of their work with respect to mandate commodities on other non-CGIAR commodities. Finally, TAC draws attention to the fact that the CGIAR also has work ongoing for genetic resources conservation with respect to many commodities which are not currently included in the CGIAR portfolio.
Finally, it is informative to review the information in Tables 2 and 4 of Annex 2. The first shows the results of sensitivity analysis. Comparison of Column 2 with Column 3 shows the impact of weighting commodities by poverty. Comparisons of Column 3 with the remaining columns shows the consequences of changes in value for the parameters of the poverty indicator and the last two columns reflect the consequences of changing the weights for gender and location. With a few exceptions the relative shares of individual crop commodities are little influenced by such changes. However, lowering the threshold level for income, i.e., the level above which the country no longer figures in calculating the poverty weighted share, has a discernible impact on virtually all commodities. This happens because Brazil, China, Indonesia, and Turkey, among others, no longer figure in the calculations so that major crops there decline in relative importance and other crops, necessarily, gain. Among the individual crops the relative share for maize seems to be sensitive to assumptions about parameter values, but not about the weighting given to gender nor to location. With these few exceptions, analysis can proceed without the added complications of bringing into play the factors examined through sensitivity analysis.
Table 4 shows how the proportions of each commodity's poverty weighted share are distributed across the regions within which the CGIAR works. Notice that, in accord with decisions at ICW96, Central Asia (with eight countries) has been added to the regions. The data of the table indicate, for example, that Asia has 80% of the poverty weighted share of chickpeas while SSA has over 90% of the poverty weighted share of plantains. This information is important for inter-centre comparison when two or more centres share responsibility for a commodity and when alternative sources of supply for a particular commodity differ from one region to another, e.g., the case of cassava.
Before opening the case for individual crop commodities against this background, it is important to make two further adjustments in the poverty weighted shares. The first of these applies to soybean. The developing world poverty weighted share is high, on the order of 2.5% ("on the order of because of the degree of uncertainty about fish and forestry products) but its role in SSA, the only region in which the CGIAR is working on soybean, is minuscule (see Table 4, Annex 2 for a regional view). The second crop requiring adjustment is groundnut, where the poverty weighted share is on the order of 3.2% but ICRISAT is investing virtually all of its effort here in the semi arid tropics, which has about 60% of the poverty-weighted share of production. Given these two considerations TAC amended the poverty weighted shares to levels consistent with current and expected CGIAR investment in the two crops. Given the interaction among shares, the reductions in the two led to an increase in all others.
In Table 2, column 3 has the poverty weighted share as amended. From Column 3 it is evident that for three commodities the poverty weighted shares are close to the proportion presently allocated to them (comparing Column 1 with Column 3). Investment in 11 commodities is well above and five are well below their poverty weighted shares. In absolute terms, beans and potato stand out as an examples of the first while rice is the notable example of the second.
As observed earlier, TAC 72 concluded that allocations in 2000 should be closer to the poverty weighted shares than are current allocations, unless other factors intervene. Specifically it was decided to recommend that the difference between the two be halved, other things equal. Those values (the sum of the percentages in columns 1 and 3 of Table 2 divided by two) are shown in Column 4. With other things equal, i.e. the qualitative considerations, TAC would have recommended these proportions of the crop expenditures for these commodities.
A review of qualitative considerations started with alternative sources of supply. TAC recognized that, for virtually every crop of the developing world, the investment in research is below the amount that could be used effectively. Even so, for some of the CGIAR crops the underinvestment is relatively more, for some relatively less, than for other CGIAR crops. Thinking in relative terms, then, TAC concluded that there are three crops in which alternative sources of supply are relatively low - banana, plantain, and cassava in SSA - and three commodities in which there are relatively more alternative sources of supply - rice, maize outside of SSA, and wheat, in that order.
With respect to new science TAC's sense is that all CGIAR crop commodities will benefit, but it is not clear that one will benefit relatively more than another in the longer run, as science, equipment, and findings are extended across the entire spectrum. As well, TAC noted the challenge to science posed by the developments emerging in potato, where late blight represents a significant threat to global and, especially developing country, production.
Finally, TAC reviewed more intensively the circumstances of rice. Clearly the Asian countries, especially the larger and richer ones, have or will have good coverage on rice. Moreover, work on rice in the CGIAR is moving towards pre-breeding, which implies the pursuit of somewhat more homogeneous aims. Finally, the current commitment to rice is notably the largest to any single crop. With these considerations TAC 72 decided to hold rice as a constant proportion of the commodities budget, even though it is now underinvesting in terms of the general rule.
Added to these several considerations, but modifying only lightly the results, were those pertaining to recent track records within the commodities and a sense of the purposiveness of the associated centres' medium-term plans. The synthesis of the major quantitative considerations are shown in Table 2, Column 5.
This discussion of sectors and commodities has converged around several points. Poverty has played a role in framing recommendations for all commodities as have alternative sources of supply, the possibilities opened up by new science, the threat of a reawakened disease, recent track records, and the purpose exhibited in medium term plans. The first element was relatively more important in the recommendations for crop commodities than for fish, forest, and livestock products. For the centres, as they reflect on their particular opportunities, still other considerations will come into play. Among them will be the possibilities through working relationships with NARS, ARIs, and with the private sector, and from projects and programmes with special implications for women and the rural poor.
