| Abstract |
We have gathered here to share our insights on the organization, the performance and the production effects of a new international network of agricultural research activities. This network, which has been developed during the last three decades, serves many countries, and in this sense, it is an international enterprise. Although it is international in scope. It was not launched by governments. It began as a venture of a rare breed of research entrepreneurs who knew from experience the requirements of the agricultural sciences and who at the outset were financed by private foundations. It now consists of a wide array of inter-related research enterprises located in various low income countries throughout the world. It is clear that the function of this network of research activities is to employ the knowledge and talents of agricultural scientists as a means of increasing the productivity of agriculture in low income countries. This international approach to agricultural research is now well established. It is robust and we see that it is capable of dealing with changing circumstances and that it is successful in taking advantage of new opportunities. But there are many low income countries that could have benefited from this research but have failed to do so. Others have benefited somewhat, but much less than they could have. Among them are countries that have the natural endowment and the potential economic capacity to greatly increase their agricultural production. We have not, in my view, given adequate attention to the factors that account for these failures.ยท. It is my contention that unless these factors are altered for the better, the uneven prospects for gains from agricultural research that are related to the economic policy of the respective countries will continue to thwart the potential success of this international approach to agricultural research. I shall begin with a comment on aspects of the anti-science "movements" with special reference to the new popular misconceptions and criticisms of agricultural scientists that prevail despite the recent acute shortages of food in parts of the world. I shill then concentrate my remarks on economic issues pertaining to the future value of agricultural research, with special references to economic policies that account for the uneven prospects already referred to. |
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