2.1. Contributions in the Past
2.2. Current Research
2.3. Assessment
The Hulse report gives a comprehensive account of the programmes at the commodity Centres during the period prior to 1990. It notes substantial, differences among Centres in the focus and scope of their programmes and, consequently, does not attempt to generalise. Nonetheless, the report contains a wealth of detailed information and shows that the research covered a multiplicity of problems, mostly relating to the need for new technology in harvesting, drying, storage and primary processing. There was no coordinated CGIAR approach, however, and the projects were conducted within individual commodity programmes, often in collaboration with specialised research institutes.
Table 1: Postharvest Research in the CGIAR Centres
|
CENTRE |
PRODUCT QUALITY |
HARVEST & STORAGE |
UTILIZATION & MARKETING |
POLICIES & INSTITUTIONS |
|
CIAT |
Breeding Beans: for "cookability" and nutritional value. Cassava: for low toxicity, "storability", and processing qualities. Forage: for nutritional value and availability. Rice: for food qualities. |
Beans: resistance to bruchids. Cassava: chips and "plastic bag" for feed and food shelf life. |
Cassava: flour and starch processing technologies; marketing, product development, and feasibility/impact analysis; and waste water treatment. |
Cassava: farmer-based small agro-industries and an integrated approach to product development; Beans and Forages: farmers' seed production enterprises. |
|
CIMMYT |
Breeding Wheat: for product suitability |
Maize: storage insects. |
|
|
|
CIP |
Breeding Potato: for processing in the tropics. Sweetpotato: for processing qualities. |
Potato: rustic storage systems for ware tubers. |
Potato: marketing methodologies. Sweetpotato: processing and marketing. Andean commodities: characterization, marketing and processing. |
Training on potato marketing methodologies |
|
ICARDA |
Breeding cereals and legumes for food and feed quality. |
Machinery and the role of women |
|
|
|
ICLARM |
|
|
Tilapia strain and Giant clams: market studies. Small-scale aquaculture: uses |
|
|
ICRISAT |
Breeding pigeonpea: for vegetable consumption. |
|
Pigeonpea: small-scale dehullers; and marketing. |
training national staff, farmers and users in crop processing. |
|
IFPRI |
micronutrient levels in cereals, food legumes and food crops. |
|
|
marketing systems and entry points for policy. |
|
IITA |
screening methods for quality evaluation of mandated crops; nutritional quality and safety of traditional foods. |
harvesting technologies, storage systems and pest management. |
small-scale processing technologies; and socioeconomic assessments. |
disseminating postharvest technologies; and training and extension. |
|
ILRI |
|
|
|
Milk: training on processing and research on policy effects on marketing. |
|
IRRI |
Breeding Rice: for cooking and tasting qualities. |
small stripper harvester systems. |
Rice: micromills for household needs and women's income in remote villages. |
Rice: improvement of milling systems in S-EA cooperatives and enterprises. |
|
ISNAR |
|
|
|
Effect of agro-industries on research organization. |
|
WARDA |
Breeding Rice: for tasting qualities. |
|
Rice: market studies. |
Rice: policy options for small-scale processing. |
2.2.1. Product Quality
2.2.2. Harvest and Storage
2.2.3. Utilisation and Marketing
2.2.4. Policies and Institutions
Summaries of the relevant programmes of individual Centres are presented in Table 1 and briefly described in Annex III. Although most Centres seem to be moving towards a systems approach to their identification of research areas and, consequently, do not compartmentalise all their activities, current harvest and postharvest research in the CGIAR could be tentatively identified as being clustered around the following functional areas.
· Product Quality: the characterisation of biochemical and physical components affecting either nutritive quality or the industrial processing of primary products; the identification of genes governing such qualities; and germplasm enhancement.· Harvest and Storage: the development of harvest mechanisation and storage facilities for small producers; the integrated management of storage pests and diseases; germplasm enhancement for resistance to factors causing storage losses.
· Utilisation and Marketing: the identification of opportunities for product diversification; the processing of primary products (e.g., drying, milling) and by-products (e.g., straw, waste water) and the assessment of demand for product development.
· Policies and Institutions: the dissemination of technology; the promotion of small-scale enterprises to apply technology; the establishment of grading rules and quality standards; and the design of development policies to improve infrastructure and political stability in marginal areas.
These functional areas do not necessarily encompass all the relevant research. For example, research on gender issues relates to all four of them. Women in rural societies are not only engaged in food preparation but play dominant roles in a wide range of harvest and postharvest activities, especially in low-income households. Several of the Centres, notably CIAT, CIP, ICARDA, ICRISAT and IITA are working in this field.
In the general area of food production, germplasm enhancement represents a major part of the CGIAR's contribution to product utilisation and the solution of postharvest problems. It is likely to become even more important as market demands become more specific and diversified. Traditionally, all the CGIAR cereal improvement programmes have included grain quality. Likewise, root shape and size, dry matter content and anti-nutritional factors have been included in root and tuber improvement programmes. However, in their germplasm enhancement programmes in more recent years, some of the Centres have placed increasing emphasis on processing and food quality characteristics that reflect new demands in the market place.
Centres with cereal crop mandates, namely, CIMMYT, ICARDA, ICRISAT, IITA, IRRI and WARDA, engage in food quality research to a greater or lesser extent. Often, the primary purpose of this research is to refine the breeding objectives of their germplasm enhancement programmes. In the past, the characteristics studied included milling and baking quality measurements. More recently, some basic measurements of starch quality have been included. Likewise, quality characteristics of food legumes are being studied by ICRISAT, and of root and tuber crops by CIP, CIAT and IITA.
Since the late 1980s CIAT, in collaboration with CIRAD, has given major emphasis to the analysis of the functional properties of cassava starch in relation to its utilisation as an end product. The monitoring of toxin levels, as well as their amelioration, are other aspects of CGIAR work on product quality, e.g., CIAT's work on cyanide (CN-1) levels in cassava. More recently, IFPRI has been leading an important project involving CIMMYT, CIAT and IRRI on breeding for enhanced levels of micro-nutrients in cereals, food legumes and root crops.
Several CGIAR Centres have studied crop harvesting systems in the context of realising greater efficiency. In the case of cereal crops this work extends to threshing and grain drying. IRRI has been most active in this area and its work has included the design and field testing of prototype rice harvesting machines and grain drying systems. ICRISAT has a special project funded by the African Development Bank on pigeonpea improvement in eastern and southern Africa, with a sub-project on harvesting, storage, processing and utilisation. IITA has collaborated with CIRAD in the development of prototype mechanised root harvesting systems for cassava. However, in general the CGIAR is not currently very active in this area of research.
Another major area of CGIAR research that has a direct bearing on postharvest utilisation and storage losses is the genetics of pest and disease tolerance and the enhancement of crop germplasm to withstand pest and disease challenge during storage and processing. CIAT, for example, includes seed management characteristics, such as resistance to bruchids, in its bean programme.
Additionally, a number of CGIAR Centres such as CIP, CIAT and IITA have engaged in applied on-farm research on crop storage systems aimed at reducing losses. CIP's work on rustic storage systems is a good example. These three areas of research, viz., the genetics of postharvest disease and pest tolerance, the identification and integrated control of storage pests and diseases, and crop storage systems, probably represent the CGIAR's most important contribution to greater efficiency in the post-production cycle.
To date, few CGIAR Centres have engaged directly in product development research and most product development activities are undertaken in collaboration with a range of institutions from both developed and developing countries. CIAT has engaged in the development of cassava-based products and the processes for their manufacture in collaboration with NRI and CIRAD, and a number of Latin American food research institutes. CIP has collaborated in potato processing research and is currently expanding its work on sweet potato processing. Likewise CIAT and IITA are involved in research on the utilisation of cassava, and in particular, on flour and starch processing technology. ICRISAT has engaged in a range of research activities relating to the processing of sorghum and millet including the evaluation of hybrid sorghum in beer making.
In the past, taste-panel studies and a limited amount of research on consumer preferences have been undertaken by CIAT, CIMMYT, CIP and ICRISAT in support of collaborative research on processing. More generally, almost all of the commodity Centres have studied patterns of local, regional and global production, consumption and consumer demand in relation to their commodity mandates, while ILCA (now ILRI) has conducted a significant amount of research on the development and testing of techniques for milk preservation and processing.
The quality of crop by-products and their utilisation as livestock feed has also been studied by a number of Centres, notably ILCA, but ICARDA and ICRISAT have also undertaken some work in these areas. ILCA's work on crop by-products is generic within its broader crop livestock production systems research, whereas ICARDA and ICRISAT have studied diets based on cereal straw and sorghum in collaborative studies on the nutrition of sheep and poultry.
In the context of its research on trade and marketing, IFPRI is involved in policy research pertinent to the application of available postharvest technology, including questions about its adoption and economics. Past research in Bangladesh has shown the important income enhancing and poverty reduction effects of rice quality improvement. Preliminary results of recent research in Africa on marketing systems show that bottlenecks to the success of market reforms may not only be in discriminatory price policies, but in barriers to entry into critical postharvest activities, such as processing, storage and transport. Policies that foster quality improvement and better price transmission from international markets to farmers are likely to depend both on adequate investment in the development of postharvest technology and on removing the barriers to market entry. Detailed studies of marketing costs in African countries and Vietnam highlight the critical entry points for policy measures. ILRI is also focusing in its postharvest activities on policy factors affecting the competitiveness of dairy production and marketing.
Of the four Centres that mention training and extension, ICRISAT, IITA and ILRI focus their activities on the dissemination of technology, with participation from the public and private sectors as well as users, while CIP mentions training on methodology for marketing research. ISNAR is assisting Benin's agricultural research system to incorporate postharvest activities in their research organization. In a project for Latin America funded by the Interamerican Development Bank (BID), ISNAR focuses on the role of agro-industries in agricultural research, to understand the effect of new demands on research policies, and to develop analytical and planning methods for guiding research to meet new demands of this type.
Although this summary of current Centre activities indicates a wide-ranging programme of research relating to harvest and postharvest problems it is difficult to assess its adequacy or effectiveness. The Hulse report concluded that CGIAR investment in post-production research was small; that relevant Centre programmes were variable in purpose and scope; that the CGIAR had given inadequate attention to postharvest research; and that donor interest and support for post-production research appeared to be fragmented and uncoordinated. The report made a number of recommendations aimed at increasing the support for post-production research within the CGIAR.
Similar suggestions have been made from time to time by others. For example, the Report of the Inter-Centre Review of Root and Tuber Crops (1995) advocated that the relevant Centres should engage in strategic research on product development. Likewise, responses to the questionnaire distributed as part of this study, could be interpreted as favouring selective increases in the resources devoted to harvest and postharvest research, differences in emphasis being partly associated with differences in Centre mandates and in perceptions of the role of the CGIAR (see Annex II).
It is evident that the CGIAR's most widespread and major contribution to harvest and postharvest research is indirect and built around genetic enhancement. This work relates primarily to the suitability of food commodities for traditional and alternative market uses and to the reduction of storage losses through resistance to pests and diseases.
However, we conclude that the Centres vary in the importance they attach to harvest and postharvest research, largely determined by the needs of the various commodities with which they are associated. Commodities, such as wheat, with a long history of product development, clearly require less attention from the CGIAR in these respects than commodities such as cassava or sorghum. But there appears to be no provision in present strategies for coordinated approaches to wider problems, such as meeting the demand among urban communities for food in a more convenient form, or for developing supplementary sources of flour for bread-making.
The Centres have usually selected specific problems related to their mandated commodities and addressed them through collaboration with others on an individual project basis. Although there seems to have been an underlying assumption within the CGIAR that the most important problems are being identified and responded to, there is no clear strategy in place to ensure that this is so.
