Surinder Sud: Why research should involve the poor

FARM VIEW

Due to the disconnect between research and developmental needs, 1.1 bn people live on less than $1 a day.

Is the agricultural research and development process, in its present form, proceeding on the right lines to help achieve the millennium development goal (MDG) of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger by 2015, without impairing natural resources? The answer is in the negative and the global farm science community concurs. But, fortunately, this realisation has already resulted in these scientists suitably reshaping their approaches towards farm research.

This was evident at the proceedings of the triennial conference of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) held recently in Delhi. This was reflected in the forum mincing no words in conveying that the MDG could not be attained if we continued our business as usual. The involvement of the stakeholders, notably the rural poor, is essential to decide the direction agricultural research should take for ensuring the kind of development that can alleviate poverty and hunger.

Indeed, the present policies, strategies and the available technologies are all aimed broadly at boosting crop production and land productivity. But what is worrisome is that this is sought to be done through an agriculture that is energy and input-intensive, as well as impairs our natural resources and harms our environment. Besides, the global agricultural market tends to bother more about food safety for the haves, rather than food availability for the have-nots. Moreover, modern technology has heightened the risks to bio-safety. The GFAR has summed it up by stating that in many situations, there appears to be a disconnect between agricultural research and developmental and societal development needs.

The net result of this is that 1.1 billion people are believed to be living on less than $ 1 per day. And, as pointed out by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) director-general Mangala Rai, as many as 430 million of them live in south Asia alone. Besides, an additional 1.6 billion people survive on between $ 1 and $ 2 per day, with many of them often sliding below the $ 1 per day threshold. That is why people need to be at the centre of all research and development policies and efforts.

One of the ways of making research relevant to people is to focus on the entire farming system, and not merely on its various parts such as crop cultivation, input management, produce marketing, animal husbandry, fisheries and the like. GFAR official Ajit Maru, who firmly believes that, at the present rate, global poverty cannot even be halved by the targeted date, recommends a balanced and diversified farming system to mitigate risks and generate avenues of income for both farmers and farm-dependent people. It is not as much higher production as more efficient production, that holds the key to achieve these goals. India seems to have made a couple of significant moves towards this. One of these is launching the World Bank-assisted $ 250-million National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP). The main feature of this six-year project is to concentrate on the research of production-to-consumption system, to ensure a sustainable livelihood security in disadvantaged areas. This project will, additionally, promote basic and strategic research in the frontier areas of science.

Besides, the ICAR has, in last three years, established about 35 strategic research networks in priority areas, such as genomics, gene pyramiding, molecular breeding and integrated disease management. A national fund for basic and strategic research in agricultural sciences has also been created to help build up capacity for this purpose.

The GFAR is now quite clear that agricultural research needs to deliver technologies that can balance income generation needs with those of household food production requirements of small farmers. For this, farmers will have to be effectively linked with markets. Unless such a link is established, a farmer cannot shift from his subsistence production to market demand-driven output.

There is also a growing realisation that the involvement of farmers and other concerned people in conceiving innovative approaches, will facilitate the amalgamation of traditional knowledge with modern technology. This will make research and development relevant to specific local conditions.

Unfortunately, the track record of international collaboration in the farm development process has not been too encouraging, especially wherever funding is concerned. A GFAR-sponsored review of the global partnership programmes has found that the response of donors has been "unpredictable and fund flow, often erratic". This makes it imperative for the various national agricultural research systems of developing countries to fend for themselves.