TAC is recognized as an international leader in processes for research priority setting and resource allocation. The innovative use of matrix analysis, and the allocation of resource "envelopes" place the CGIAR system well ahead of many other institutions in this regard.
For many of the CGIAR mandated commodities, considerable information is available on global, regional, and national production and consumption patterns. Reasonable projections can be made with some validity. This is especially true for the commodities that are of extreme importance to many nations (e.g. rice, wheat, maize), and for the commodities of significant international trade. Several sources of information are available to assist in establishing and verifying commodity production and consumption patterns over considerable periods of time.
The situation is not as convenient for the root and tuber crops. Much of the production of root and tuber crops is not captured in accessible survey literature or databases. Such information must be estimated through surrogate indicators, and the use of default assumptions. This in-and-of-itself is not a fatal flaw for making projections, but it does raise some degree of concern over the validity of the resulting estimates.
As an alternative analytical approach, a recent TAC Secretariat desk study (October 1995) looked at the value of the root and tuber commodities in terms of caloric and protein measures. This analytical approach was used because of the difficulties in establishing the monetary value of the individual root and tuber commodities. This approach does however point out the difficulty in coming up with analytical indicators that could be used to set research priorities for individual commodities. The TAC Secretariat desk study was admittedly inconclusive.
There are other some alternative analytical approaches that could be used for research priority setting.
In a landmark article published in the November 1994 issue of the American Journal of Agriculture Economics. Huffman and Just demonstrate an analytical procedure for assessing the agricultural production benefits of alternative institutional structures in the U.S.A. federal/state partnership for agricultural research. A conversation with Professor Richard Just explored the potential application of this analytical procedure to the commodities of the CGIAR system. He responded that it would be possible to analyze returns on research investments using trends in crop yields from the IARC stations, as a surrogate for missing crop production information. This would allow an analysis of the "unrealized yield potential" discussed earlier in this report.
A point of interest for this type of analysis would be in the characterization of "research plateaus" vis-a-vis the identification of research opportunities. The notion here is to better cross link research opportunities with research priorities. This proposed analytical approach would also be helpful for establishing the relationships, if any, between commodity research outlays and resulting yield gains. Other analyses could be conducted on similar dependent variables that have been set out as research goals (e.g., crop market values; crop nutritional values; IPM gains).
Professor Just responded to a request about conducting an analysis on surrogate crop yields for the IARCs' mandated root and tuber crops. He estimated that such a study would take at least a year and would require considerable financial resources to obtain the intended results. Given the time constraints on this study, the project was not pursued further. It is included here to note that there are analytical opportunities available to TAC that could be used as alternative approaches for research priority setting.
A study of the technology assessment process used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Science and Technology Review Board (ASTRB) was also conducted. The ASTRB was charged in the Federal Food, Agricultural and Conservation Trade Act of 1990 (a.k.a., 1990 Farm Bill) with identifying and evaluating current and emerging technologies, and with assessing how well the research and extension programs provided by the federal government meet the purposes and needs of U.S. agriculture and the U.S. consumers..
ASTRB has developed a new method for technology assessment that has been tested against seven controversial technologies. The evaluation process completed a matrix of criteria that was then used to assess the ways in which the selected technologies are likely to affect five different segments of society. The method they developed included consideration of "issue-categories" relating to agricultural and rural life as:
· Structure, ownership, participation in, and control of U.S.A. agriculture.
· Economic opportunities in rural communities.
· Nutrition, health, and the food supply.
· Interactions between agricultural practices and the environment.
· The resilience and regenerative capacity of agriculture.
· Global agriculture.
· The relationship between agriculture and the public.
· Human capital.
· The science and education system.
The evaluation process used by ASTRB was more qualitative than quantitative, and the criteria are not necessarily appropriate to the priorities of the CGIAR system. But the outcomes of the process seem suitable for choosing among technologies in way that seem relevant to the needs of the CGIAR.
The above two approaches represent alternatives to analyzing production and consumption trends as a way of setting research priorities. These alternatives are noted with the suggestion that TAC consider broadening its analytical process to use a pluralism of methods for priority setting. This is definitely not intended as a criticism of the process that TAC has used for priority setting, but rather as encouragement for TAC to extend its reach for information gathering, and for using diverse analytical processes, to further enhance the strength and acceptance of the recommendations derived from such activity. 5
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The constraints of time and resources did not allow this study to pursue these alternative analytical methods. They are referenced here as informational only.
