1: Agricultural Research
Generate cutting-edge science to foster sustainable agricultural growth that benefits the poor through stronger food security,
better human nutrition and health, higher incomes and improved management of natural resources
Other Information:
Why agricultural research matters -- Rising food prices, concern over global climate change, the energy crisis and new interest
in the potential of biofuels have ushered in a new era of challenge and opportunity for agriculture and natural resource management.
These global trends, while affecting people everywhere, have particularly high risks and consequences for the approximately
2.1 billion people who live on less than US $2 a day. About three-fourths of these people live in rural areas and depend directly
or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods. Furthermore, higher food and energy prices will force poor consumers to
make tradeoffs in their spending, drastically reducing their possibilities for improved well being. Climate change, by worsening
growing conditions for crops, will further strain the capacity of agricultural land and threaten the productivity growth vital
for reducing poverty. Scientists estimate that rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns could cause agriculture
production to drop by as much as 50 percent in may African countries and by 30 percent in Central and South Asia. Strengthened
investment in agricultural science at national and international levels is essential to meet these new and multi-faceted challenges.
Moreover, there is a need to scale up such research to foster innovations for increased agriculture productivity to benefit
the rural poor while conserving natural resources such as water, forests and fisheries. According to the World Development
Report 2008, investment in agriculture research has “paid off handsomely,” delivering an average rate of return of 43 percent
in 700 development projects evaluated in developing countries. Clearly, strong programs of relevant and effective research
must be at the top of the international development agenda, if the Millennium Development Goals of halving hunger and poverty
by 2015 are to be met and if these gains are to be expanded in the decades to come. An evolving strategic partnership -- The
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), established in 1971, is a strategic partnership, whose
64 Members support 15 international Centers, working in collaboration with many hundreds of government and civil society organizations
as well as private businesses around the world. CGIAR Members include 21 developing and 26 industrialized countries, four
co-sponsors as well as 13 other international organizations. Today, more than 8,000 CGIAR scientists and staff are active
in over 100 countries throughout the world. The CGIAR generates cutting-edge science to foster sustainable agricultural growth
that benefits the poor through stronger food security, better human nutrition and health, higher incomes and improved management
of natural resources. The new crop varieties, knowledge and other products resulting from the CGIAR’s collaborative research
are made widely available to individuals and organizations working for sustainable agricultural development throughout the
world. A critical task for 11 of the CGIAR Centers is to maintain international genebanks, which preserve and make readily
available the plant genetic resources that form the basis of food security worldwide. In addition, the CGIAR implements several
innovative “Challenge Program” designed to confront global or regional issues of vital importance. Implemented through broad-based
research partnerships, Challenge Programs mobilize knowledge, technology and resources to solve those and other problems such
as micronutrient deficiencies, which afflict more than three billion people; water scarcity, which already affects a third
of the world’s population; and climate change, which poses a dire threat to rural livelihoods across the developing world.
The CGIAR is constantly striving for excellence. During 2008 a Change Management Initiative is in progress designed to ensure
that in this rapidly changing external environment described earlier, the CGIAR is positioned to deliver new technologies
and new knowledge which will deliver the best possible results. The Initiative will culminate in a forward looking strategy
for the CGIAR. The CGIAR is open to all countries and organizations that share a commitment to achieving sustainable agricultural
development and are willing to invest financial, human and technical resources toward this end. Membership has expanded and
diversified over the years, and the CGIAR is poised for further growth. CGIAR expenditures amounted to US$506 million in 2007,
the single largest investment made to mobilize science for the benefit of the rural poor worldwide. Without public investment
in international agricultural research through the CGIAR, world production would be 4-5 percent lower, developing countries
would produce 7-8 percent less food, world food and feed grain prices would be 18-21 percent higher, 13-15 million more children
would be malnourished. For every $1 invested in CGIAR research, $9 worth of additional food is produced in developing countries,
where it is needed most. The evidence is clear: agricultural growth alleviates poverty and hunger. Benefits for the poor and
the planet -- International agricultural research has a strong record of delivering results that help confront the central
development and environmental challenges of our time. The science developed by the CGIAR-supported Centers and their partners
has delivered significant gains in terms of reduced hunger and improved incomes for small farmers throughout much of the developing
world. CGIAR research is much broader than agricultural productivity alone, encompassing a range of initiatives related to
water, biodiversity, forests, fisheries and land conservation. It has advanced sustainable management and conservation practices
in these sectors, therefore protecting millions of hectares of forest and grasslands, safeguarding biodiversity, and preventing
land degradation. Among the outcomes of that research are the following: Successful biological control of the cassava mealybug
and green mite, both devastating pests of a root crop that is vital for food security in sub-Saharan Africa. The economic
benefits of this work alone, estimated at more than $4 billion, are sufficient to cover almost the entire costs of CGIAR research
conducted so far for Africa. New Rices for Africa, or NERICAs, which combine the high yields of Asian rice with African rice’s
resistance to local pests and diseases. Currently sown on 200,000 hectares in upland areas, NERICAs are helping reduce national
rice import bills and generating higher incomes in rural communities. More than 50 varieties of recently developed drought-tolerant
maize varieties being grown on a total of about one million hectares across eastern and southern Africa. A flood-tolerant
version of a rice variety grown on six million hectares in Bangladesh. The new variety enables farmers to obtain yields two
to three times those of the non-tolerant version under prolonged submergence of rice crops, a situation that will become more
common as a result of climate change. Widespread adoption of resource-conserving “zero-till” technology in the vital rice-wheat
systems of South Asia. Employed by close to a half million farmers on more than 3.2 million hectares, this technology has
generated benefits estimated at US$147 million through higher crop yields, lower production costs and savings in water and
energy. An agroforestry system called “fertilizer tree fallows,” which renews soil fertility in Southern Africa, using on-farm
resources. More than 66,000 farmers have adopted this technology in Zambia, where it has strengthened food security and reduced
environmental damage, and the system is spreading in four neighboring countries. Information and tools used by conservationists
to monitor some 37 million hectares of forest, resulting in better management of this diminishing resource and contributing
to more sustainable livelihoods for forest dwellers. A new method for detecting aflatoxin, a deadly poison that infects crops,
making them unfit for local consumption or export benefiting farmers throughout sub-Saharan Africa. This technology, together
with a novel biological control method that has proved able to reduce aflatoxin by nearly 100 percent, is helping to curb
this major threat to human health, especially in children, and to save millions of dollars in lost sales of food for export.
A simple methodology for integrating agriculture with aquaculture to bolster income and food supplies in areas of southern
Africa where the agricultural labor force has been devastated by HIV/AIDS. Under large-scale testing in Malawi, the method
doubled the income of 1,200 households and dramatically increased fish consumption. A new approach to predicting the likely
impact of climate change on major crops’ wild relatives, which are a key source of genes needed to enhance climate resilience,
as well as valuable findings on the likely consequences of biofuels development in China and India for increasingly scarce
water supplies. Increasing smallholder dairy production in Kenya improving childhood nutrition while generating jobs. This
award-winning project with smallholder dairies has contributed up to 80 percent of the milk products sold in the country and
strengthened local capacity to market milk products. The CGIAR Genebanks -- CGIAR scientists play major roles in collecting,
characterizing and conserving plant genetic resources. Eleven Centres together maintain over 650,000 samples of crop, forage
and agroforestry genetic resources in the public domain.
Objective(s):
|
