Forever Pioneers
50 years contributing to a sustainable food future
…and counting
CIAT 50 Celebrations
8-9 November 2017

The Birth of the
Centro Internacional de Agricultural Tropical
- CIAT -

Origins of a Latin American Ecoregional Center
The Two Ecoregional Centers Stand in Contrast to the 2 Commodity Centers
Colombia Agricultural
Program (CAP)
From 1950
Agriculture and the
Alliance for Progress
Harrar chairs Ad Hoc
Review Panel on the
NAS Study creating CIAT
National Academy of
Sciences study for a LAC
research institute (1964-65)
Ford Foundation
approves proposal
for creation of IITA
The Roberts-Hardin
Proposal for the
design of CIAT
1961 196619641963 19651959

Design Elements in the Roberts-Hardin Proposal
(building on earlier proposals)
→Food security through focus on the agricultural frontier
(savannas)
→Production systems rather than commodities, including
livestock
→Crop improvement programs in only a few crops
→Interdisciplinary research programs staffed by career
scientists
→Cooperation with other research centers in the region
→Building capacity in national programs and links with
universities

Critical Role Played by the Colombian Government
• Role in steering regional response to the NAS report
• Purchased land for CIAT in the Cauca Valley
• Purchased land for joint research
in Carimagua
• Convenio would support CIAT during
the budget downturn
• Colombia would become one
of largest donors to CGIAR

Principal Themes in CIAT’s History
⃝ ⃝ ⃝
Integration of commodity and NRM research
in production systems
Frontier development in Latin America
Addressing rural poverty and the small farmer question
Organizing research globally vs ecoregionally
Organizational flexibility and institutional change

Integration of Commodity
and NRM Research

Organizing Commodity vs NRM Research
• Green Revolution provided model for commodity research in
irrigated areas
• No experience or model of agricultural systems research
• Little experience organizing breeding around rainfed
ecologies
• A significant part of systems research would have to be on
farm

Perfecting
the interdisciplinary
crop research program
Two Competing Organizational Models
1974-1990
In search of models
for systems research
integrating NRM and
commodity research
1991 to present

Impact of CIAT’s Commodity Research Programs
Benefits of investment in rice germplasm improvement in Latin America have
been placed at between $0.85 billion and $2 billion per year
Number of bean varieties released in East and Southern Africa increased
from 7 in the 1970’s to 130 in the 2000’s
82.7% of the total of 4.1 million hectares of cassava cultivated in 9
countries in Asia are under improved cassava varieties; 65 % of this total is
under CIAT related varieties
Brachiaria grasses adopted on over 3 million ha in Mexico and
Central America and 10 million ha in Brazil– developed by EMBRAPA
from CIAT lines

James Cock
Leader of the cassava program – 1974-1989
Reflections on the interdisciplinary
crop research teams

Frontier Development in
Latin America

Frontier Development in Latin America
• Never a 100% focus of CIAT
• Balancing points in CIAT’s approach
• Savanna and/or the tropical rainforest
• Colombian/Venezuela llanos vs the Brazilian cerrado
• Crop choice only partly congruent with frontier focus
Could CIAT have just focused its research program on
the Latin American frontier?

Limited or Lagged Impact: Technologies
without supportive institutions and policies
• Llanos: Pasture establishment following upland rice
outside the piedemonte
• Pasture rehabilitation in the forest margins
What are prospects for development of the Guinea Savannas in
Africa based on the Brazilian experience in the Cerrado
World Bank: Awakening Africa’s Sleeping Giant
African Development Bank: Transformation of African
Savannah Initiative (TASI)

Rural Poverty and
the Small Farmer

Addressing Rural Poverty
• McNamara’s 1973 speech on eradication of poverty by 2000
• Second generation problems with Green Revolution
• Skewed distribution of land in Latin America and rural poverty
• SDG 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere

Small Farm System Program (1973-1975)
• Evolution from Agricultural Production Systems Program
• Reasons for terminating program
• There was little integration with the commodity programs
• No basis for interdisciplinary team work given disciplinary mix
• Program lacked focus on its goals and clients
• Director General saw program did not fit commodity research
program model
• Flexible program structure allowing interaction between
system and commodity programs did not exist

CIAT Small Farmer Approaches
• Beans and cassava as crops grown by small farmers
• Minimum input technology philosophy
• “Farming systems research” integrated into commodity
programs
• Development of farmer participatory research and CIALs
• Cassava processing cooperatives

Jacqueline Ashby
Director, Natural Resource Management,
1996-2002
Reflections on farmer participatory
research and the small farmer

Organizing Research
Globally vs Ecoregionally

Organizing Research Globally vs Ecoregionally
• CIAT and IITA conceived of as ecoregional centers distinct
from commodity focus of IRRI and CIMMYT
• In early expansion of the CGIAR TAC allocated global and
regional mandates across the Centers
• CIAT had global mandate for cassava, beans and forages
• CIAT had a regional mandate for rice
• The 2008 reform has restructured CGIAR research into 12
(formerly 15) collaborative, global research programs
• CIAT leads the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security
(CCAFS) CRP

Switching Between Global and Ecoregional
1968-1982
Program focus
on Latin
America
1983-1990
Global
expansion
though
regional
cassava and
bean networks
1990-1999
NRM programs
through an
ecoregional
approach in
Latin America
while
maintaining
crop networks
2000-2007
Major focus on
Africa (TSBF,
PABRA, and
ERI)
2008-Present
A matrix of
three research
programs
implemented
through three
regional
programs

Organizational Flexibility and
Institutional Change

Organizational Flexibility and Institutional Change
• Center with broadest, most flexible mandate
• CIAT has undergone more programmatic change than any
Center
• Continuous reinterpretation of mandate
• Four mandate commodities covered wide ecological range
• Programmatic adaptation to changing development and partner
agendas both global and regional
• Early integration of new science into programs
• Allowed restructuring in fiscal downturns
• Responsiveness to reforms in the CGIAR

Evolution of research to higher system levels
1968-1974
Commodities
within
production
systems
1975-1990
Four
interdisciplinary
crop research
programs
1991-2000
NRM and
sustainable
Systems –
Ecoregional
Center
2001-2007
Organizational
flux
2008-present
Eco-efficient
production
systems
Future
Food
Systems
??

Organizing System Research
• Organizational flexibility around a matrix of themes
and programs
• Programs: Eco-efficient Production Systems
• Crop Improvement
• Soils and Land Productivity
• Decision and Policy Analysis
• Themes
• Preserving ecosystem services
• Harvesting big data
• Climate proofing agriculture
• Making food systems sustainable

The Future
50 years ago in the creation of the first four international
centers, the foundations perceived that the Centers would
work themselves out of a job
The vision remains: Exploring new frontiers while achieving the
potential of systems research but in a very different global
context

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