Presentation from the Livestock Inter-Agency Donor Group (IADG) Meeting 2010. 4-5 May 2010 Italy, Rome IFAD Headquarters. The event involved approximately 45 representatives from the international partner agencies to discuss critical needs for livestock development and research issues for the coming decade. [ Originally posted on http://www.cop-ppld.net/cop_knowledge_base ]

1. Will a time of plenty for agricultural
and livestock research help to feed
the world?
J. Dijkman
IADG, 4 May 2010
IFAD
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2. Happy days are here again?
• Worries about food security and climate change and the
rediscovery of the poverty-reducing potential of
agricultural development has prompted a new rush to
invest in agricultural research;
• e.g. DFID – 140 million USD per annum from 2010
• WB – 560 million USD per annum in the 2010 – 2012
AAP;
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3. Happy days are here again?
• BMGF – 120 million USD per annum, c. 80 million of
which goes to the CGIAR – and increasing;
• If the CGIAR’s ambitious plan for reform is successful, it
seems likely to be at the receiving end of much new
funding
... but will these days of plenty for research be enough to
make a difference?
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4. Food security, climate change and innovation
• Two major concerns: the threat of food insecurity in the
poorest countries and the effects of climate change on
these agriculture-dependent countries.
• What connects these is the (re)discovery that agricultural
development is key to poverty reduction.
• Upgrading food productivity requires technical, but also
institutional and policy upgrading. Similarly, adapting to
climate change needs farm-level technical adaptation,
but it also requires institutional and policy adaptation.
The power of research is best exploited by combining it
with other ideas, activities and developments.
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5. Beyond the research-driven narrative of the GR
• The GR is illustrative of many of the tensions within the
current debate about the role and deployment of
agricultural science:
• The headline story: Food production was dramatically
increased by the development and introduction of high-
yielding varieties of wheat, maize and rice, combined
with a package of irrigation, pesticides and nitrogen
fertilisers.
• This compelling technology narrative is almost certainly
the reason why most investments to promote global food
security continue to give emphasis to a research-driven
approach to agricultural innovation.
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6. Beyond the research-driven narrative of the GR
• But there is another narrative:
• Involved a unique partnership between public sector plant breeders in
India and elsewhere and the research centres of prominent
philanthropic organisations (the forbearers of the CGIAR). This built on
many years of earlier research.
• It required a complex food policy regime that involved price support,
procurement policies and infrastructure, and a linked public food
distribution system;
• It required public supply of inputs to areas with favourable production
environments.
• It required senior scientific and political figures to champion these series
of events and make them a reality.
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7. Beyond the research-driven narrative of the GR
• The contribution of research was undoubtedly critical, but
more important was its combination with other activities and
policies.
• It happened in a region with a state-dominated economy,
where bold, publicly-orchestrated interventions of this sort
were politically and administratively possible.
• Blunt policy instrument: inappropriate for areas without
access to water and other inputs and insensitive to food
preferences and sustainability issues.
• Unsurprisingly the approach could not be replicated in the
complex social, economic and political mosaic of sub-
Saharan Africa.
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8. Given the contemporary setting of the agricultural sector,
with its strong linkages between farmers and global
markets via private sector-dominated value chains, what,
then, should be the innovation narrative for agricultural
development?
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9. The relationship of research to innovation
• Agricultural innovation is rarely driven by research and
is usually opportunity-driven, with entrepreneurs (micro
or corporate) responding to market opportunities and
threats;
• Underpinning the capacity of these entrepreneurs to
innovate is the network in which they are embedded
and which they use as a way of accessing knowledge,
information, and technology:
• e.g. information about the changing state of the market, about
new technology and about expertise to address opportunities
and threats
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10. The relationship of research to innovation
• Poorly-developed linkages among players with
complementary roles and information are the major
constraint to innovation capacity - often related to long-
standing routines, practices and policies
• Research is usually poorly-embedded in these networks
and this undermines its ability to contribute effectively to
the innovation process
(WB 2006)
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11. Challenges of investing in innovation
• The long tradition of investing in agricultural research
• The international community partners with organisations
chiefly concerned with agricultural research
• Well-defined and trusted organisational set-ups that
have a track record of utilising large development
investments, often with longstanding relationships with
the development community.
• Administratively attractive to large development investors
with significant funds to disburse.
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12. Challenges of investing in innovation
• Instead, the innovation capacity perspective advocates
loose and changeable networks of different
organisations working together on an evolving set of
issues.
• Where should investments in these be channelled other
than into public research and extension organisations?
• How can partnerships and consortia arrangements be
financed, since these are often transient and rarely legal
entities?
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13. Challenges of investing in innovation
• There certainly are things that can be invested in: sector
coordinating bodies, farmers’ associations and other
areas of institutional development that nurture
networking and social capital formation;
• This is, however, a fragmented type of investment that
has high transaction costs that are ill-suited to donors;
• Large-scale investments in agricultural innovation
capacity, have tended to firmly lie with the agricultural
research administration: e.g. the WB supported the
$200-million NAIP of the ICAR, which pioneered in India
the idea of thematic consortia spanning the public,
private and civil society sectors.
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14. Challenges of investing in innovation
• This is not to say that international organisations don’t
recognise that there is a need to invest in something in
addition to research;
• The answer to what that new type of investment might
be is, however, still something of an open question;
• e.g. DFID has invested £40 million into its Research Into
Use (RIU) programme as a successor to its previous
investment of £200 million into agricultural research,
which, largely, didn’t get put into use.
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15. Challenges of investing in innovation
• The programme has set up a series of into use
experiments. These are trying to put research products
into use by commercialisation, social marketing and
through various forms of partnership.
• Other RIU projects in Africa are experimenting with ways
of strengthening innovation capacity by connecting up
different pieces of the sectors and systems in which they
are working.
• Evidence that suggests that rather than simply promoting
research products what is more valuable is linking the
research process to activities led by entrepreneurs and
other users of new ideas.
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16. Championing a new approach
• Over time the question of what constitutes agricultural
research has broadened considerably both in terms of
the scope of activities (now emphasising both piloting
ideas in the field as well as laboratory-based discovery)
and the scope of partnerships involved;
• But while this contemporary outlook points to the need to
view research as a complementary tool to development
activities, in practice firm administrative and operational
distinctions between the two are maintained.
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17. Championing a new approach
• So, can a new approach to food security —one that
focuses on embedding research in general development
and strengthening the capacity to innovate — really take
root? Or will the new money for agricultural research
simply reinforce the disconnect between agricultural
science, innovation and development?
• A prominent development investor, willing to champion a
new approach at a time when money is flowing back into
agriculture, could make a huge difference. Priorities for
such a champion include:
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18. Championing a new approach
1. Experiment with new forms of development assistance
that use an innovation capacity-based approach and
which merge research-like and development-like
activities;
2. Influence the investment decisions and programme
portfolios of other donors (including private foundations)
and development agencies;
3. Share ideas and experiences on enabling food security
innovation by promoting global networking. The most
useful way to use agricultural research for innovation
can only be learnt through experience and by
continuously updating new approaches and ways of
working.
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19. Championing a new approach
There are signs that some development investors see
that the problems of food security and coping with
climate change require more than just research.
If one of the bigger ones stands firmly behind this idea,
agricultural and livestock research may finally deliver on
their promise.
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