Innovations and incentives in
agricultural research for poor countries
Delia Grace and Tom Randolph
Agricultural Research for Development: Innovations & Incentives
Uppsala, Sweden, 26-27 September 2012

Outline
 The livestock laboratory
 CGIAR: science, evidence, or innovations?
 Case studies
 Community-based tsetse control
 Smallholder dairy development
 Innovations + incentives = impacts?

International Livestock Research Institute
member of the CGIAR Consortium which conducts livestock, food and
environmental research
 to help alleviate poverty
 and improve food security, health & nutrition,
 While protecting the natural resource base.
India
Mali
 700 full time staff-1000 total
 100 scientists & researchers
 54% from 22 developing
countries China
 more than 30 scientific Vietnam
disciplines
 2012 budget USD 60 million
Laos
 ILRI works with a range of
Nigeria
research & development
partners Mozambique
 across 7 CGIAR research
Kenya
programs
Ethiopia Thailand

Agriculture
for Nutrition &
Health
CGIAR Research Program 4
IFPRI
ILRI
BIOVERSITY
CIAT
CIMMYT
CIP
ICARDA
ICRAF
ICRISAT
IITA
IWMI
WORLDFISH

Livestock support livelihoods
• In many developing countries, especially SSA, livestock contributes at least
40% agriculture GDP
• Around one billion poor people depend on livestock: 70% of the rural and 25%
urban poor. Dependency: 12-50%
• Livestock high value and rapidly growing sector
Projected global consumption in 2050
Rosegrant et al., 2009

Livestock nourish billions
• Over half developing world’s food
(crops and livestock) comes from
population (millions)
mixed crop livestock systems -
livestock are integral
• Livestock provide food for over 480.3 295.1
830 million food insecure people:
6-36% of protein and 2-12% of 1099.2
calories
• Small amounts of animal source
foods make a huge difference to
nutrition (cognitive development,
maternal health) 2674

Livestock bring lethal gifts …..
• Low income countries:
• Zoonoses & diseases emerged from animals 26% IDB, 10% total burden
• High income countries:
• Zoonoses & emerged 0.7% IDB, 0.02% total burden

Livestock have a long shadow…
• 31% of total freshwater use is for is for livestock
• Livestock impact on climate change- 18%?
• Livestock compete for other land uses
Additional grains
1048 million tonnes
more to 2050
Human
Livestock
consumption
430 million MT
Monogastrics mostly
458 million MT
Biofuels
160 million MT

Growing, urbanising, hungry populations
Photo by NYT

Impacts of the CGIAR
 65% of the total area planted to the world’s 10 most important food
crops is sown to improved varieties
 The overall economic benefits of the CGIAR estimated at US$14 -
$120 billion
 For every $1 invested in CGIAR research, $9 worth of additional food
is produced in the developing world
 Without CGIAR research developing countries would produce 8%
less food and have converted12 million more hectares to farm land
 Around 80,000 students, scientists and professionals have benefited
from capacity-building
(The CGIAR at 40 and beyond, 2011)

Evolution of the CGIAR
IMPACT
EVIDENCE
SCIENCE
TECHNOLOGY

2 case
studies

Case study 1:Innovations that fail
Community-based tsetse
control
 Trypanosomosis: the most
important disease of cattle
wherever present
 Spread by the unusual tsetse fly
 Also causes sleeping sickness
 Controlled initially by bush
clearing, game culling, areal
spraying insecticides…

What was done? Community based tsetse
 Innovation
 Screens that kill tsetse
 Science showed
 Tryps the most important
disease. 10% infected.
  production by 15%
 Screens cheap, effective
 High satisfaction
 High use (until..)

Often tried
Always works
Never sustained
15

Case study 1:Innovation that succeeds
 Kenya smallholder dairy
Milk: 2nd largest item of
urban household
expenditure
Milk: Per capita daily
consumption of 0.2-0.4
kg
3.5% of Kenya’s Gross
Domestic Product
(GDP) and 14% of the
agricultural GDP.
Smallholder farmers
produce around 80% of
the total production

What was done? Training informal milk sellers
 Innovation
 Training, branding, certification of
informal sector
Fail to meet standards
 Metal milk cans, quality checks 100%
 Science showed
 Importance of smallholder dairy
 Milk hazards high but health risks low
 Formal milk no safer than informal
Raw milk Pasteurised
 Training hawkers increases safety

Impacts of training informal actors
 Policy change
 Informal sector recognised
 Impacts
 Increase in milk handled
 Around 80% actors trained
 Around 50% licensed
 $33 million USD annual benefits
 Vibrant smallholder sector
 Major donor investment

Some differences between case studies
Community-based tsetse control Training informal sector milk sellers
 Novel behaviour  Socially endorsed behaviour
 Collective action required  Individual action required
 Risk averse target group  Entrepreneurial target group
 With success, motivation fades  With success, motivation remains
 Distant link with behaviour and  Clearlink between behaviour and
income income
 Innovation in a static market  Innovation in dynamic market

LESSONS AROUND INOVATION & INCENTIVE
 FAILURE IS GETTING EASIER TO PREDICT – but not necessarily
success
 INNOVATIONS ARE THE LEVER – but often succeed in the project
context but not in the real world
 PICKING WINNERS IS WISE BUT PORTOFOLIO SHOULD BE WIDER–
strong markets and growing sectors drive uptake
 INCENTIVES ARE CENTRAL: value chain actors need to capture visible
benefits
 POLICY: not creating enabling policy, so much as stopping the dead hand
of disabling policy and predatory policy-implementers
 “think like a systemicist, act like a reductionist”

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“Thank you for your attention”