April 2004
GFAR Secretariat News
GFAR Statutory Meetings
ICT
Feature articleBuilding Impact-oriented R&D Institutions: Lessons from the National Agricultural Research System of India
Basic principles
A dynamic and well managed National Agricultural Research System (NARS) is essential for deriving benefit from International Agricultural Research Centres (IARC) as well as Advanced Research Institutions (ARI) in industrialised countries and in other developing countries in Asia and Latin America. In fact, the benefits derived from IARCs and ARIs will be directly proportional to the strength and capability of NARS. A well-organised NARS should also bring together into working partnership institutions in the private sector, universities, women’s universities and home science colleges and environmental groups into a cooperative national grid. Such an integrated research grid will ensure that although the individual strengths of the different partners may vary, their collective strength becomes considerable. Further, research, education and training, field-testing and evaluation and technology incubation and demonstration should all be integrated in the mandate of NARS. All links in the production-processing-marketing-consumption chain will have to receive equal attention so that the wheel of progress moves smoothly.
For building a dynamic and high impact NARS, political support and recognition of the importance of science and technology for agricultural transformation are essential. This will call for according high social prestige to agricultural research and extension workers. There should be a Principal Agricultural Science Advisor to the Head of Government and there should be a Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet. Unless national scientists are given due recognition and respect and reward, the advice of international experts will be received with resentment and scepticism.
Vision and Mission
The political system should provide the vision. Obviously, the vision for any agriculture system will include happy farming families, sustainable farming systems and food for all and forever. The political vision of the nation will have to be converted by professionals into a doable mission and mandate. The vision and mission could be articulated in the form of a Policy Statement for Agricultural Science for Agrarian Prosperity by the government. The major aims of the mission mode approach (end to end) will be to ensure the productivity, profitability, quality and value addition and sustainability of the major farming systems. Since in most African countries, more than 70 percent of the population depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, it is essential that agricultural technologies should foster jobled economic growth in rural areas and not jobless growth. Also, the strategy should build on the inherent strengths of African agriculture. For example, much of African agriculture can be classified as organic farming since the average use of fertilizer per hectare is very low. Also, in many areas, there is only minimum tillage. We have to build on these strengths and also respect the ecological prudence of local farming families and more particularly women farmers who are very close to earth.
Personnel Policies
Personnel policies should be conducive to attractive and retaining gifted and dedicated scientists. The management culture of research institutions should be a collegiate and not a hierarchical one. The system should be scientist-centred and not post-centred. There should be both monetary and non-monetary rewards to achievers. Not much time should be wasted on questions like brain drain. What is important is to nurture and care for the brains remaining in the country. Too much praise for those who are outside the country and too little recognition for those who are working under heavy odds within the country are not conducive to building up the morale of the national scientists. A system like the one I developed in India titled, ‘Agricultural Research Service’ (ARS) has many features worthy of emulation. I shall be happy to make available to any one interested the rules of ARS introduced by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research in 1974. Also scientists have to be supported by technical staff, who also require recognition and reward since they help to optimise the time and talent of scientists. Again, I can make available the Indian technical support service rules, which allow dedicated technical workers to receive monetary and non-monetary recognition. It is obvious that high morale and dedication have to be sustained through sensitive personnel policies. Such policies should also be gender sensitive and should make special provision to recognise the multiple burden on a woman’s time.
Research Agenda and Strategies
It would be important to adopt a farming systems approach to the design of the research strategy since in Africa livestock farming is as important as crop farming. The research strategy should also take into account gender roles in agriculture. A critical mass of inter-disciplinary research will have to be generated if the research is going to be based on a problem solving and not a discipline worshipping mode. This will call for recognition to team work. Group awards should be instituted. Commodity-specific and farming systems-specific coordinated projects should be promoted within every country to bring together scientists working in different disciplines and different institutions into a working partnership for solving specific field problems and for making new innovations and inventions. It is also important to ensure that the necessary research infrastructure is available for accomplishing the tasks undertaken. Maintenance staff should be given importance in order to ensure that costly equipment is well serviced and cared for.
The research-development linkages are exceedingly important. For this purpose, there should be concurrent attention to technology choice, incubation and dissemination, training and retraining, techno-infrastructure and home and external trade. Technology incubation and verification in farmers’ fields are essential for assessing the cost-risk-return structure of the recommended technological package. It is the cost-risk-return structure which ultimately leads to farmers’ decisions on investment and farming system.
Lab to lab, Lab to land, Land to lab and Land to Land linkages are essential for converting small government programmes into mass movements. The following are the features of such linkages.
- Lab to Lab – This will involve organising a consortium of scientific institutions and data providers
- Lab to Land – This will involve symbiotic linkages between the providers of information and the users, so that the information disseminated is relevant to the life and work of rural families
- Land to Lab – There is considerable traditional knowledge and wisdom among rural and tribal families concerning sustainable management of natural resources, particularly water. Therefore, technical experts should not only learn from traditional knowledge and experience, but also take steps to conserve the posterity, the dying wisdom and the dying crops
- Land to Land – There is much scope for lateral learning among rural families; such learning has high credibility because the knowledge coming from fellow farm women or men would have been subjected to an impact analysis from the point of view of its economic and social relevance to the population
A consortium of distinguished farmers should be formed in every country to guide the research system on priorities. Farm women and men are the ultimate judges of the worth of new technologies.
Public Policies
A symphony approach is necessary to introduce mutually reinforcing packages of technology, services (input supply, credit including the issue of credit cards to farmers) and input-output pricing, investment on market infrastructure, rural roads and irrigation and other forms of public support. In several African countries the agrarian reform package should include not only land reform but also livestock reform so as to restrict the number of animals to the population supporting capacity of the ecosystem. Simple methods of measuring ecological footprints and soil health should be popularised in villages. Public policies should include adequate and sustained financial support. National governments should provide the needed core budget. Project support could be obtained with the help of suitable bilateral and multilateral donors. Unless a country itself commits its resources to agricultural research and education, the programme will become donor and not mission driven. It should also be ensured that there is a proper match between programme and budget. Within the budget, there should be a proper balance between expenditure on staff and research activities in the laboratory or field. A 40:60 ratio will be desirable in respect of expenditure on staff and research support.
Technology Mix
There should be an appropriate choice of conventional and molecular biotechnology, information and communication technology (internet, cable TV, community Radio and vernacular Press), space technology (GIS and remote sensing), renewable energy technology (solar, wind, biomass and biogas), and management technology (i.e., putting all the pieces together).
Agricultural Engineering
Many African nations provide opportunities for both area expansion and productivity improvement. Suitable farm implements and post harvest equipment hold the key to improving the efficiency and competitiveness of African agriculture. In particular, implements including small horsepower tractors are essential for minimising drudgery and improving the productivity of women farmers. Opportunities for area expansion depend largely upon farm power and water harvesting. Post-harvest technology needs greater attention, since there is currently a mismatch between production and post-harvest technologies in most developing countries. As a result, both producers and consumers do not derive the full benefit of production efforts.
Impact analysis - Monitoring and Evaluation
The impact analysis methodology should include the measurement of productivity, profitability and sustainability and should take into consideration the gender dimension. Impact on home and external trade based on WTO criteria like sanitary and phytosanitary measures and codex alimentarius standards are equally important. For this purpose, there is need for a quality and trade literacy movement. The evaluation should be an inbuilt process so that timely corrective measures can be undertaken.
International Partnerships
This has to be organised in a symbiotic manner at different levels - within a country, within a region, with IARCs and ARIs, among NARS in developing countries and also with the private sector. Mission oriented cooperative networks among partners could be developed on the model of WARDA. Collaboration with IARCs and ARIs could be on the basis of mutual needs and strengths. Collaboration with the private sector should be on the basis of an agreed code of conduct and IPR agreements. The NARS of India has also the advantage of the integration of Agricultural Universities, Agricultural Research Institutes dealing with crop and animal husbandry, inland and marine fisheries, forestry and agro-forestry and agro-processing, within the purview of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. Thus, concurrent attention can be given to conservation, cultivation, consumption and commerce.
There is much developing countries can learn from each other in the development and nurturing of high impact R & D institutions in the field of agriculture. South – South collaboration in harnessing science and technology for improving the productivity, profitability and sustainability of agriculture will result in a win-win situation for all.
M.S. Swaminathan
GFAR Statutory MeetingsGFAR Retreat
GFAR Secretariat organized a Retreat, involving all categories of stakeholders, in order to define the new GFAR Business Plan for 2004-2006. This retreat took place in Florence, Italy on 2-3 February 2004, and was carefully prepared in close collaboration with a team of two facilitators over a two moths period. On Sunday the 1st of February, the provisional agenda was finalised and a preliminary contact with all the participants was established, during a getting to know each other session followed by a dinner. The full report is available
GFAR Management Team Meeting
The 9th GFAR Management Team meeting was held in Florence, Italy on 4-5 February 2004, right after the GFAR Retreat. The draft version of the minutes is available.
A new Business Plan for GFAR (2004-2006)
The GFAR Business Plan (BP) identifies and describes activities that GFAR as a group will focus on during a specified period of time. The first BP covered the period of 1999 to 2000, while the second one was for the period of 2001 to 2003. We now have a third BP for the period of 2004-2006. The First External Review Panel recommended that the BP should define the role each stakeholder will play in respect of the lines of action agreed upon, as well as the expected outputs and milestones to measure progress, and that this should be accompanied by a Secretariat Programme of Work designed to facilitate the implementation of the BP.
This third BP was developed with the recommendations of the review panel in mind, and in a manner that fully respected GFAR's the principle of participatory decision making, because the various GFAR stakeholders groups were consulted and contributed to the final product. The output of the various consultative processes, analyses and syntheses, is a three-part BP made up of: i) A Strategic Document that briefly describes some of the issues that shaped the vision of GFAR and which will guide the choice of its activities for the immediate and near future. ii) A comprehensive three-year rolling BP that responds to the recommendations of the review panel. iii) An annual Programme of Work for the Secretariat that indicates what the Secretariat will do to facilitate the implementation of the 3-year rolling BP. Details of the BP will be published and disseminated in various forms including as a special EGFAR edition as soon as the draft is endorsed and approved by the GFAR Steering Committee. Meanwhile we summarize the highlights of the BP in this edition.
The recommended priority areas of activities to which GFAR will devote most of its energy and resources during the plan period comprise 4 pillars or main components, and 2 cross-cutting issues.
Inter-Regional Collaboration
GFAR stakeholders came to the collective realization that an important value adding niche of the Global Forum is the linkage it facilitates amongst the various regional fora, in order to promote exchange of ideas, knowledge, technologies and information across the regions. They therefore recommended that over the next little while, a special attention should be paid to promoting this special value adding activity, using a three-pronged approach. Firstly, to ensure through advocacy that all Regional and Sub-Regional Fora (RF/SRF) are true fora in the spirit of GFAR, with the various stakeholders adequately represented in governance structures and participating effectively in forum activities, including decision making processes, research partnerships and networking. Secondly, to develop capacity to address and implement the above where required, and thirdly to take appropriate actions that will facilitate and actively promote the exchange of expertise, knowledge, technologies, and information amongst the various RF/SRF. One of such activities that will be carried out to accomplish this third objective will be the identification of the strengths and opportunities in the various RF, followed by a matching of needs and resources to promote collaboration, including networking along south-south as well as north-south axes. RF will drive the initiative themselves with the support and participation of appropriate institutions and other GFAR stakeholder groups such as the International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR). It was also suggested that the EMBRAPA LABEX model of south-north collaboration built on strengths and opportunities of participating partners may serve as an interesting model that could be adapted and built on for this purpose.
Collaborative Research Partnerships
During the triennium of 2004-2006, GFAR will continue to use its preferred tool, the Global Partnership Programmes (GPPs) to promote and implement research partnerships which will be developed around the following four areas considered to be of global importance by GFAR stakeholders in 2000, and reaffirmed as still being relevant now and likely to remain so in the near future: genetic resources management and biotechnology, natural resources management and agro-ecology, commodity chains and policy management and institutional development. These areas were considered broad enough to accommodate any special and particular concerns of stakeholders. It was also suggested that with regards to policy management and institutional development, an area that has hitherto been neglected, a special effort should be made to promote national and regional partnerships between NARS and specialized policy research groups in order to establish policy research priorities and carryout appropriate policy research with the objectives of influencing decision makers. Such partnerships appear crucial because NARS usually do not have the capacity to accomplish this task alone. Finally, it was suggested that sometime during plan period, at a time when GFAR would have had a sufficient number of on-going or completed GPPs, an evaluation of this instrument in terms of its impact, appropriateness and continued relevance for promoting research partnerships should be carried out. Some of the expected outputs from the implementation of this pillar are: up to date and useful information on on-going and pipelined GPPs made available to all stakeholders via EGFAR and other appropriate communication media; implementation of phase 2 of on-going GPPs that have completed phase 1; the development and implementation of new GPPs on issues identified by concerned stakeholders; and some recommendation on the continued relevance and adequacy or otherwise of GPPs as a tool for partnership building.
Advocacy, Public Awareness and Strategic Thinking
One of the issues on which there was some consensus during the 2003 GFAR general meeting was that GFAR should pay a special attention to, and step up its advocacy and strategic thinking role. The current BP therefore features a number of activities that will implement this recommendation. For example, GFAR stakeholders will identify issues of importance and relevance to agriculture and agricultural research, organize high level debates and discussions on them, and produce outputs in terms of a basket of options for solutions targeted towards appropriate decision makers at different levels - national, regional and global. Appropriate stakeholders will contribute to on-going efforts to demonstrate the contribution of the sector to economic growth and human well being and therefore sensitize and convince policy makers of the need for increased and sustained investment in agricultural research in developing countries. Since charity begins at home, GFAR stakeholders will engage in what has been described as reciprocal advocacy activities which, on one hand, will ensure that all Regional Fora are true fora, open to the active participation of all stakeholders with equal opportunities to participate in decision making processes, and, on the other hand, will ensure that GFAR is better known through stakeholders promoting the GFAR concept. It was felt that if these and other activities described in details in the full document were diligently carried out, the following outputs would be achieved: an increased recognition of the contribution of agriculture and agricultural research to poverty alleviation and food security, which should lead to increased policy and financial support; important issues of global concern identified and discussed leading to informed and updated stakeholders, capable of making enabling policy decisions and/or taking appropriate actions; a reinforcement of stakeholder ownership of GFAR.
Management Information System for Agricultural research for sustainable development (ARSD)
The role that the new Information Communication Technologies (ICT) could play in promoting the concept of partnership on which GFAR is founded was recognized very early in the life of GFAR. Such roles include facilitating access to, and the processing of information, the development and operation of networking activities, the promotion of participatory forms of research, and the provision of a convenient forum for the exchange of views and positions either on focused research themes or on more general topical debates. Stakeholders recently reaffirmed the continued importance and relevance of information sharing and knowledge exchange to their activities now and for the coming decade. The development and utilization of a Management Information System (MIS) for ARSD was therefore identified as one of the essential pillars of the new Business Plan. Stakeholders decided to collectively pursue the following objectives under this pillar. Improve, regularly update the GFAR website EGFAR and establish it as a medium of information exchange and knowledge sharing amongst GFAR stakeholder groups and with others; establish a global MIS on ARSD stakeholders, their expertise and activities; and complement these e-media of exchange with other appropriate media. In terms of activities to be carried out to address these objectives, the plan provides for the establishment an EGFAR Advisory Group composed of persons with appropriate expertise, and charged with providing guidance and input into the continuous development of EGFAR, in terms of technical tools to be used, content, monitoring and follow up activities.
Two additional and novel activities featured in the BP are: firstly, to use EGFAR as a medium for e-conferences and debates on topical issues of global concern in order to address the advocacy and strategic thinking components of the plan. The outputs of such debates and conferences will be packaged and disseminated to enrich available pool of knowledge and add the voice and perspectives of GFAR to the relevant global issues; secondly to complement EGFAR with a variety of other appropriate communication tools such as printed annual reports, workshop proceedings, flyers, policy briefs, rural radio and television programmes, in order to increase stakeholder access to GFAR generated information.
Cross Cutting Activities
In spite of the efforts deployed to date, there is still limited private sector investment in ARSD in developing countries, hence the need to make renewed efforts and develop new strategies to engage the private sector in GFAR stakeholders' activities. Furthermore a central part of our vision is to make the farmer-producer the central piece of all GFAR activities. A special effort will therefore be made to ensure the active involvement and participation of CSOs in GFAR's affairs. It was strongly recommended therefore that these two areas of activity, i.e., private sector engagement and CSOs full involvement and participation in the ARSD process, will be reflected across all of the priority areas of activity, as cross-cutting issues. In addition, the BP contains a number of specific activities that will address the issues raised above. One of such activity is the plan to develop a model approach to functionally link Civil Society Organizations to National Agricultural Research Institutions, through a hand on project initially focused on sub-Saharan Africa, and subsequently replicated elsewhere.
Concluding Remarks
The full implementation of the BP during the next one or two triennium will make GFAR a relevant initiative because it will lead to several of the following outputs:
- A well known, and recognized GFAR whose concept is more universally acknowledged, accepted and practised, and whose voice and perspectives are reflected in global events
- A GFAR whose stakeholders actively promote and practice the concept of working together, and giving a voice, space and opportunity to hitherto marginalized groups to actively participate in all activities, including decision making processes
- Emergence of functional NARS inclusive of relevant stakeholders
- GFAR driven activities, projects and programmes founded on cost-effective partnerships which are repeatedly replicated, scaled out and up by others
- Concrete, visible, and demonstrable impact of GFAR stakeholder activities on food security, poverty reduction and responsible natural resources utilization and conservation.
ICTGLOBAL.RAIS: Towards the end of phase one
The GLOBAL.RAIS project is now in its final phase!
The Central Asia and the Caucasus workshop was held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, during the period 27-28 January 2004 and the final report is available.
FARA's workshop is planned to take place from the 27 to the 28 of April 2004 in Accra, Ghana (for details, please see the related article).
FORAGRO is working on the organization of its ICT consultation in San José, Costa Rica from May 25 to 27 2004, and finally GFAR Secretariat will hold the Inter-Regional Workshop, engaging all RAIS managers and key persons, on 10-11 June 2004, in Rome, Italy, in order to set up a global agenda for ICT and get ready to launch the second operational phase of the GLOBAL.RAIS project.
If you wish to receive more information on the project, workshops and future activities, please contact .
InfoPrix Benin/Local market prices via SMS and on the Internet
In collaboration with the German Centre for Documentation and Information for Agriculture (ZADI) and private company TERRESTRIS the National Office for Food Security (ONASA) in Benin has developed and information system that provides actual market information via SMS and the Internet. Enumerators on 64 local markets collect prices of 25 agricultural products. Prices are evaluated every 4 to 7 days. Data are entered by a network of internet cafés throughout the country and send to ONASA at the end of each market day. At ONASA the information is verified and made available on an SMS server and the internet. Prices are also broadcast in local language on rural radio and published in a monthly journal.
Each morning a SMS message is sent to registered users with the latest price information on the 7 most important products from the 6 most important markets. Registration is for free. Users also have the opportunity to make special queries for more detailed information by sending a simple SMS message to ONASA (An SMS message D DNT MAI will return the latest price information on maize MAI from the market Dantokpa DNT for consumers D. Send message to 970007, 038151 or 429494. From abroad send message to +229970007). Prices can also be viewed at http://www.terrestris.de/run. In collaboration with ZADI, ONASA is also preparing a web site with additional information on trade related issues in Benin such as legislation, description of agricultural products, information for conflict management in agricultural trade, a market price calendar, official procedures and a detailed address list of actors involved in agricultural trade.
Benin is a member of RESIMAO the West African Network of Market Price Information Systems. RESIMAO is about to develop a regional information system. It is envisaged that regional system will capitalize on the Benin experience. For more information please contact at or .
Marc Bernard
EIARD-Infosys+ and RUN Manager
DURAS Project, launched
In an effort to contribute to strengthening the involvement and enhancing the scientific potential of southern stakeholders in agricultural research for sustainable development (ARSD), GFAR in cooperation with Platform Agropolis and with the support of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched Project DURAS this April.
The Project DURAS (Promotion du Développement Durable dans les systèmes de Recherche Agricole du Sud) is composed of three components, namely:
- Support to regional and sub-regional fora to enable them to function as a real forum where relevant stakeholders actively participate. This activity may focus on revisiting/updating regional priorities with full participation of all stakeholders, with a special emphasis on facilitating the involvement and strengthening of civil society organizations (CSOs) so that they can meaningfully participate in the process
- Develop and reinforce a functional information communication management (ICM) system through an improvement of the Electronic Global Forum on Agricultural Research (EGFAR) and the development of Regional Agricultural Information Systems (RAIS) for the regional fora
- Competitive grants that will fund proposals in key priority areas consistent with the GFAR Business Plan - (a) agroecology and other sustainable farming practices, e.g. direct sowing agriculture; (b) local knowledge in natural resources management; (c) rural innovation and linking farmers to market; and (d) agrobiodiversity and genetic resources management for food security.
The third component is to be managed by Agropolis International, an international platform of research organizations and institutions of higher learning in agriculture, based in Montpellier, France. To date, the competitive grants is being developed. It is expected that the first Call for Proposals will be launched during the GFAR Statutory Meetings in late October 2004.
This three-year project will cover countries in Africa, Near East and some parts of Asia. For further information, please contact Mr. , DURAS Project Coordinator, at Agropolis International, Avenue Agropolis, F-34394 Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
GFAR Secretariat
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