The TAC Secretariat desk study projects significant production increases in root and tuber crops, based on information from two sources. Surprisingly, per capita consumption of these commodities is expected to decrease. This is a consequences of projected population growth. Strategies for dealing with the expected food shortages of the 21st Century will no doubt be referred, in a large part, to the CGIAR System.
There is a "lag time" associated with deploying research discoveries. The current round of priority setting for the allocating of resources within the CGIAR system will affect food consumption patterns in the "out years" of one or two decades and beyond. This is expected to be the period when the world's population crisis intercepts the global capacity for food production. This is why the TAC's resource allocation decisions in this round are so important.
There is admittedly a divergence of opinion on the methods that should be used for resource allocations for agricultural research. Some argue that scientific opportunity should be given priority over identified need. Scientific opportunity, it is argued, is where the breakthroughs will occur, and those opportunities are not necessarily found where there is an identified need. Others argue that resources must be placed only on identified-need areas, and then assume that the identified need will somehow lead to scientific discovery.
Neither argument in convincing. The first argument fails to meet the prerequisite for scientific relevance for publicly financed agricultural research. The second argument fails to appreciate the requirements of a scientific breakthrough (i.e., an existing pool of knowledge, among others things).
There are international expectations for IARCs. In addition to the two expectations cited above [that is, the need to 1) provide the best quality science on 2) the most relevant topics], the CGIAR system must also maintain donor interest and support. There is also the obvious need for the system to provide for a diversity of research programs, a plurality of scientific discipline activities, and a mixed portfolio of commodities.
