Upload
gloria-griffin
View
219
Download
1
Tags:
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Enhancing Developing World Agricultural Performance: getting beyond the current
plateau through R&D
Prabhu PingaliPrabhu PingaliDeputy DirectorDeputy Director
Agriculture DevelopmentAgriculture DevelopmentBill & Melinda Gates FoundationBill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Keynote address to Conference on “Integrated Assessment of Agriculture & Sustainable Development”, Egmond aan Zee, Netherlands, 10-12 March 2009. Views expressed are personal.
Recent Trends in Developing World Crop Productivity Growth
• Production– Cereal output in
developing countries has grown 2.8 percent annually for three decades
• Productivity– Yields, not area, were
responsible for growth– TFP grew along with
yields
Long run commodity price decline has had a positive impact on food security and poverty reduction
Real prices for commodity group
Small holder productivity growth triggered overall rural growth and rural
transformation.
Investments in agricultural research and development yield high returns.• Agricultural research
and development (R&D) yield returns of 40-50 percent.
• Returns are high in all regions, including Sub-Saharan Africa.
• International & national public sector played a crucial role.
• Public research carried out in OECD countries had large spillover effects in developing countries.
Developing world agriculture is facing increasing divergence
• Low Productive Agriculture in the Least Developed Countries
• Modernizing Agriculture in the Transforming Economies
Low-Productivity Agricultural Economies
• Generally the Least Developed Countries (LDCs)
• Ag has a large share of GDP yet productivity is low
• Low NARS capacity & low private sector interest
• Low prospects for reaching the MDG goals on poverty and hunger & high levels of environmental degradation
The least developed countries are relying more on food imports …
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
61 64 67 70 73 76 79 82 85 88 91 94 97 00 03
Agricultural Imports AgriculturalExports
Billion US $
DEFICIT
Constraints to agricultural transformation in the LDCs
Age old constraints
– Low demand– Poor public good
provision– Lack of technology
R&D– Low agro-climatic
potential– Institutional barriers
New issues
– Declining competitiveness
– Availability of lower priced food imports
– Volatility in aid flows & directions
– Capacity limitations in meeting sanitary and phyto-sanitary standards
Implications for Agricultural R&D: back to basics?
• Focusing on productivity improvement but with the benefit of modern science and 40 years of lessons learnt on trade-offs.
• Dealing with the “Changing Locus of Agricultural Research” -- Public to Private Sector
• Going further down the impact pathway than in the past
• Building local capacity for R&D
Transforming Economies
• Dietary transformation fueled by economic growth and demographic shifts
• Organizational changes in retail, wholesale, processing, and procurement
• Tremendous heterogeneity observed w/ respect to participation and distribution of benefits
Transforming Economies: implications for R&D
• Sustaining and enhancing staple crop productivity gains
• Making domestic agriculture globally competitive
• Diversifying agricultural systems & household incomes
• Reducing rural poverty & malnutrition, especially in marginal environments
Cross cutting issues and concerns
• Investing in tropical agricultural science
• Revitalizing breeding programs
• Achieving scale in crop & resource management
• Dealing with the consequences of climate change
National and International public sector breeding programs are no longer the primary suppliers of
innovations
Declining Expenditures in Plant Sciences: the case of the CGIAR
(shares of total investment, 1972-2005, by research category)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
1972-76 1977-81 1982-86 1987-91 1992-96 1997-2001 2002-2005
Sh
are
s o
f to
tal
investm
en
ts (
%)
Increasing Productivity Protecting the Environment Saving Biodiversity
Improving Policies Strengthening NARS
Source: CGIAR annual report 2001 for data from 1972-2001; Executive Summary of the 2004 CGIAR Financial Results (May 2005) for data from 2002 to 2005 (latter year projected).
REBUILD THE INTERNATIONAL NETWORKS FOR THE FLOW OF GENETIC RESOURCES AND IMPROVED GERMPLASM.
No nation– and no ongoing breeding program– can be self sufficient in terms of its requirements for genetic resources.
Crop and Resource Management Technologies: Can we achieve scale?
• Few examples of wide spread, cross country use of non-breeding technologies
• Technologies for sustainable use of inputs (eg., water use efficiency) have had limited success
• Knowledge-intensive practices (such as IPM) have not scaled up well
• We need a new paradigm for addressing sustainable crop & resource management
Integrating Climate Change Concerns
• Climate change adaptation should be seen as an integral part of the work on stress-prone environments (eg., drought tolerance)
• Sustainable management practices could contribute to mitigating climate change (eg., conservation agriculture)
• Added focus on climate change increases the ex ante returns to agricultural R&D
Way Ahead
• A renewed and revitalized CGIAR that is sharply focused on the international dimensions of agricultural research
• Reviving university based tropical agricultural research and capacity building
• Developing composite tools for addressing persistent problems (eg., plant breeding coupled with molecular biology tools)
• Promoting multi-disciplinary approaches for solving complex problems