Agricultural Science and Technology Policy

Objectives: Agricultural research and development (R&D), which has generated astounding increases in food production in the twentieth century, is vital to assuring food security for the burgeoning global population in the coming decades. But changes in the financing, management, and organization of agricultural R&D, the proprietary nature of the agricultural sciences, and the nature of the biological sciences themselves are occurring rapidly. After decades of sustained growth, the rate of growth of spending on agricultural research has slowed in most countries since the early 1980s, and in some countries spending has even shrunk. The private sector is paying for and conducting an ever larger share of agricultural research, while governments are reducing their agricultural R&D spending. These and other changes have tended to push the agricultural research agenda in new directions, raising questions about whether agricultural R&D will be able to help meet the food needs of the poor and hungry beyond 2000.

Despite these rapid and in many respects unprecedented developments, there is a dearth of information and policy analysis to inform and guide the institutional and policy changes that are underway or being contemplated. It is the overriding objective of this research theme to help remedy that situation by developing methods of analysis and providing new information through researching public policies that improve the funding, performance, and impact of public and private agricultural science and technology institutions worldwide, including their productivity, environmental, and ultimate poverty consequences.

To achieve this objective researchers organize its activities around three highly inter-related research themes and one methodological theme, specifically:

Research Themes

• Investment and institutional policies for agricultural science and technology
• Agricultural genetic resource policies
• Productivity-environment linkages of agricultural R&D, and their growth-cum-distributional (e.g., poverty) consequences

Methodological Theme

• Economic methods for evaluating agricultural science and technology

Results: New and enhanced methods, data bases, and analyses aimed at informing policymakers about the effects of past agricultural research and quantifying the strategic tradeoffs regarding future R&D portfolios and other forms of public investments in agriculture.

Improved policies and institutional options and implications regarding public investments in, and institutions involved with, agricultural science and technology.

An improved understanding of the economic consequences of alternative national and international public policies regarding the proprietary nature of crop genetic resources.

Tractable methods for assessing the production, environmental, and poverty consequences of agricultural R&D.

Impact: Worldwide studies will assist governments and development agencies in designing appropriate public policies regarding the financing and performance of agricultural R&D and other publicly provided services to stimulate technical change in agriculture.

Much clearer understanding of the consequences of changing the property rights assigned to crop genetic resources in terms of the impact on the agricultural innovation process.

Improved estimates of the productivity, environment, poverty trade-offs involved in agricultural R&D at spatial scales necessary for strategic policy making.

Duration of Research: The effort to track and analyze R&D investments worldwide is ongoing, as is the research designed to improve R&D evaluation and priority setting methods and practice.

Milestones

1997	Completion of the main phase of work on research policy and institutional options in Africa. Completion of studies of agricultural financing and institutional design issues in a representative collection of rich countries.
1998	Completion of the main phase of work on research evaluation and priority setting in Latin America.
1999	Completion of donor reports for regional research priorities project for Latin America. Publication of a book on agricultural financing and institutional design issues for OECD countries. Publication of a monograph on Contemporary African Agricultural R&D Policies. Publication of a meta-review of the returns to agricultural research. Release of DREAM on the Internet.
2000	Policy reports related to regional LAC priorities study. Completion of first phase of an assessment of the state of the world's agroecosystems. Report on methods and initial application for assessing environmental consequences of agricultural R&D. Completion of papers for IAEG poverty study.
2001	Completion of country studies related to impact of local and CGIAR rice research in LAC. Completion of donor reports for public investments in Chinese agriculture project. Completion of significant part of IPR modeling research. Global review of productivity performance and prospects for agriculture. Completion of book on financing and institutional change in LDC and international agricultural R&D.
2002	Synthesis of IPR case studies. Draft monograph on location and spillovers in agricultural R&D. Major DREAM update. Synthesis of African agricultural R&D priorities project.
2003	Overall synthesis of IPR research project. Synthesis of international flows and impacts of improved germplasm research.

Researchers

• Phil Pardey (team leader)
• Shenggen Fan
• Stanley Wood
• Nienke Beintema
• Connie Chan-Kang

Key Collaborators

The research team has developed a "hub and spoke" or "distributed network" approach to the conduct of its work. Specifically, the program has made a considered (and we think cost-effective) decision to undertake the work with a limited core set of personnel based at IFPRI and through a number of longer- term, strategic collaborations with individuals and institutions in various developed and developing countries, complemented by more transient research alliances.

Those with whom we conducted joint research or collaborated in other ways during 1998 include:

• Asian Productivity Organization (APO), Japan
• Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), Cali, Colombia
• Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo (CIMMYT), Mexico
• Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Beijing
• Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Beijing
• State Planning and Development Commission, Beijing
• Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (Embrapa), Brazil
• Food and Agriculture Organization, (FAO) Rome
• Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA), Costa Rica
• International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Philippines
• International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), Italy
• International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR), the Netherlands
• Laboratory for Global Remote Sensing Studies, Department of Geography, University of Maryland
• Montana State University, Department of Economics and Agricultural Economics, United States
• National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
• Systemwide Genetic Resources Programme (SGRP-GR)
• University of California, Davis, Department of Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics and the Agricultural Issues Center, United States
• University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics, United States
• World Resources Institute, Washington D.C.

Major Active Projects

Financing and Prioritizing Public Investments in Agriculture (R&D)
1996–1999	Inter-American Development Bank (including trust funds)
1997–2002	USAID, Global Bureau
1997–1998	University of California PacRim Program
1999–2000	USAID Africa Bureau
1999–2000	Fontagro
1999	Australian Center for International Agricultural Research
Priorities for Chinese Agricultural Investments
1998–2001	Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR)
Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators
1997–1999	Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR)
1999	USAID, Global Bureau
Research Evaluation Methods and Assessment Activities
1997–1999	USAID, Global Bureau
1999–	Technical Advisory Committee and impact Assessment and Evaluation Group, CGIAR
1997–1999	University of California, PacRim Program
1999	IFPRI, Office of the Director General
1999	Integrated Pest Management, CRSP
1999–2000	Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agroprecuária (Embrapa)
1999–2001	European Commission (DG8)
Environmental Aspects of in Agricultural R&D
1996–2000	CIAT/BID
1999–2000	World Resources Institute
Evaluating Social Science Research
1999	IFPRI, Office of the Director General
Agricultural Genetic Resource Policies
1998–2001	Swedish international development cooperation agency (Sida)

last updated: March 23, 1999