|
September 26, 2008
International Agricultural
Research for Food Security, Poverty Reduction, and the
Environment: What to Expect from Scaling Up CGIAR Investments
and “Best Bet” Programs
Joachim von Braun, Shenggen Fan, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Mark W.
Rosegrant, and Alejandro Nin Pratt
IFPRI
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The recent food crisis, combined
with the energy crisis and emerging climate-change issues,
threatens the livelihoods of millions of poor people as well as
the economic, ecological, and political situation in many
developing countries. Progress in achieving development goals
(such as cutting hunger and poverty in half by 2015) has been
delayed significantly; in fact, the number of food-deficient
people actually increased in the past two years by at least 75
million. These challenges require multifaceted, sciencebased
technological, economic, and political approaches.
Through its international research centers, its publicly
available research, its broad network of partnerships, and
its long experience in the field, the CGIAR is wellpositioned to
contribute to the global effort to foster food
production, increase access to food, and reduce poverty and
hunger in both rural and urban areas. However, the
system cannot effectively address these global challenges
without additional funding and improved organizational design.
The latter is being addressed by an ongoing change process. The
former is the focus of this paper, which examines what can be
expected from a scaled-up CGIAR.
There can be no doubt about the strong role of agricultural
research in concert with other development
investments: numerous studies have shown that investments in
agricultural research typically rank first or
second in terms of returns to growth and poverty reduction,
along with investments in infrastructure and
education. Fortunately, there is a new and broad-based consensus
that investment in agriculture and in related,
research-based innovations must be accelerated. But the obvious
questions are: by how much should this investment be
accelerated, where should it be focused, and what can be
expected from it?
This paper utilizes two different approaches to assess the
impact of significantly scaling up investment in public
agricultural research in developing countries in general, and in
the CGIAR in particular. First, it models the potential impact
of doubling research investment on agricultural (food)
production and poverty reduction, and also on international food
prices. It then provides a compilation of “best bets” for
large-scale research investments, as identified by the CGIAR
centers in a survey done for this study.
The modeling indicates that increasing investment in public
agricultural research in the countries included in the
model from about US$4.6 billion to US$9.3 billion during the
next five years (2008–13), and doubling CGIAR investment from
US$0.5 to US$1.0 billion as part of that, would increase output
growth coming from research and development (R&D) from 0.53 to
1.55 percentage points. Doubling this R&D investment would also
reduce $1-a-day poverty by 204 million people by 2020. This
scenario assumes that expanded investment is targeted toward
maximizing total agricultural output, which means allocating R&D
investment more to Southeast/East Asia
and South Asia than other regions. If, on the other hand,
expanded agricultural research is targeted toward
maximizing poverty reduction, then R&D investment should be
allocated more to Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. This could
increase overall agricultural output growth somewhat less (from
0.53 to 1.11 percentage points per year), but would lift about
282 million people out of poverty by 2020 (compared to 204
million in the first
scenario).
A different global model (IFPRI’s IMPACT model) was used to
estimate the effects of accelerated R&D
investment—combined with plausible increases in other
development investments—on international food prices.
Full report:
http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/books/oc58.pdf |
|
SCALING-UP CGIAR
INVESTMENTS COULD PREVENT FUTURE
FOOD CRISES |
|
Source:
CropBiotech Update
An advance copy of a report
entitled "International
Agricultural Research for Food
Security, Poverty Reduction, and
the Environment: What to Expect
from Scaling Up CGIAR
Investments" has recently
been put up at the International
Food Policy Research Institute
(IFPRI) website. The report
co-authored by Joachim Von Braum
and colleagues models the
potential impact of doubling
research investment on
agricultural production, poverty
reduction, and international
food prices, and also provides a
compilation of "best bets" for
large-scale research investments
which were identified from a
survey done by CGIAR centers.
The report suggests that, "a
high-investment scenario could
reduce the price of maize by 67
percent in 2025, wheat by 56
percent, and rice by 45 percent,
while reducing unit costs of
production to main farm income".
Expanding the R&D investment in
agriculture may therefore be
critical in preventing future
global food crises. The 14
examples of "best bets" for
large-scale research investments
on the other hand, ranging
between about US$10-150 million
each over five years should
encompass the broad areas of
increasing the agricultural
productivity of crop and
livestock systems, reducing
risks, improving the nutritional
quality of food, mitigating
climate change and improving
ecosystem resilience, enhancing
germplasm exchange, and
improving market information and
value chains.
|
|
