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CONTEXT
There is today
a worrisome and worldwide decline in the growth
rates of public support for agricultural research
in both developing and industrial countries.
In the past, agricultural research and development
(R&D) has been able to count on large and
growing allocations of public resources. This
support has contributed decisively to meeting
the food needs of developed and developing countries
alike.
In developing
countries, ensuring food security for the poor
at the same time as ensuring economic growth
is a massive challenge for the future. Addressing
this challenge successfully depends, to a large
extent, on the development and deployment of
new agricultural science and technology. Vast
populations depend on agriculture for their
daily food. Yet this same agricultural activity
must be performed under changing conditions
of climate, water, soils, land use, production
inputs, and international rules and standards.
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THE
ISSUE
In agricultural
R&D, there is an increasing shift towards
private financing, and away from public financing.
The poor, along
with their other vulnerabilities, have low incomes.
So they lack the purchasing power to pull private
R&D initiatives towards their problems and
concerns. The question is: "Who will undertake
R&D that addresses the challenges of the
poor in developing countries?"
What could be
done to change the current incentive structures
within developing country governments and their
international partners, and to augment public
and private support for agricultural R&D
that addresses the problems of the poor?
One way forward
would be to make a persuasive case that agricultural
R&D constitutes one of the best investments
in favor of poverty reduction and other Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). This case has indeed
been made: see, for example, the Food and Agricultural
Organization report The
State of Food Insecurity in the World 2002
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A
GLOBAL PUBLIC GOODS APPROACH
The case that
agricultural R&D is critical to poverty
reduction is convincing. But this argument has
not so far been enough to achieve any change
in funding trends.
Could we explore
where, and to what extent, the interests of
the poor overlap with the interests of richer
population groups, and even with the interests
of private corporations involved in agricultural
R&D? Could we, in other words, appeal to
objective mutual interests among these groups?
The global public
good lens can help us explore this possibility.
If such overlapping interests do indeed exist,
then investment in agricultural R&D dealing
with the poor in developing countries need no
longer be justified on a foreign aid rationale.
Instead, such investment becomes a matter of
providing a global public good that also has
utility for the richer elements in the world's
population.
Such a global
public good argument could include the following
propositions
| • |
Since knowledge
is a non-rival good, the knowledge generated
through pro-poor R&D would enter the
global knowledge stock, and be available
for others to use. Knowledge generated in
the past to address the agricultural problems
of developing countries has in fact been
used to develop new crop varieties grown
in developed countries, including by private
firms. |
| • |
Agricultural crises and
food insecurity in developing countries
are not only harmful to those directly affected.
They also may destabilize the affected societies,
generating such cross-border effects as
migration, refugees, civil strife, political
conflict, and public health problems. |
| • |
More productive agriculture,
and less food scarcity, means lower food
prices, benefiting virtually all consumers
all over the world. |
The above argument
is probably valid, but it requires bolstering
in several ways.
First, a proper
investment case needs to be made, including
cost/benefit data that would allow public funders
to judge whether agricultural R&D is indeed
a good investment promising relatively high
global social rates of return. Recent assessments
of the impact of international publicly-funded
agricultural R&D suggest that, in the past
at least, the returns have been very high (see,
for example, R.E. Evenson and D. Gollin, 2003,
"Assessing the Impact of the Green Revolution,
1960-2000", Science, 300: 758-762).
Second, policy
research should be undertaken on how best to
provide further R&D support. Should more
"push" money be added into such existing
arrangements as CGIAR? Or do we need new "pull"
mechanisms, analogous to those suggested in
the health domain via vaccine purchasing funds
or tax credits for new vaccine sales? Would
public/private partnership arrangements provide
viable solutions, perhaps along the lines of
the African
Agricultural Technology Foundation.
Dana G. Dalrymple,
a research advisor at USAID, offers a perspective
on the global public good nature of international
agricultural research in his paper International
Agricultural Research as a Global Public Good:
A Review of Concepts, Experiences, and Policy
Issues.
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