Agriculture%20at%20a%20Crossroads_Global%20Report%20(English)

12 | IAASTD Global Report
lucrative option to reduce GHG emissions from fossil fuels;
however, controversy is increasing on the economic, social
and ecological cost/benefit ratio of this option. On-farm
bioenergy production utilizing farm residues has potential.
However, studies have revealed that bioenergy demand is
sensitive not only to biomass supply, but also to total energy
demand and competitiveness of alternative energy supply
options (Berndes et al., 2003). Additionally, the environmental
consequences and social sustainability aspects of the
processing of crops and feedstocks as biofuels have not yet
been thoroughly assessed.
Biotechnology has for millennia contributed to mankind’s
well-being through the provision of value-added
foods and medicines. It has deep roots in local and traditional
knowledge and farmer selection and breeding of crops
and animals, which continues to the present day. Micropropagation
of plants by tissue culture is now a common
technique used to produce disease-free plants for both the
agricultural and ornamental industries. Recent advances in
the area of genomics, including the ability to insert genes
across species, have distinguished “modern biotechnology”
from traditional methods. Resulting transgenic crops, forestry
products, livestock and fish have potentially favorable
qualities such as pest and disease resistance, however with
possible risks to biodiversity and human health. Other apprehensions
relate to the privatization of the plant breeding
system and the concentration of market power in input
companies. Such issues have underpinned widespread public
concern regarding transgenic crops. Less contentious biotechnological
applications relate to bioremediation of soils
and the preparation of genetically engineered insulin. Commercial
transgenic agricultural crops are typically temperate
varieties such as corn, soya and canola, which have been engineered
to be herbicide resistant or to contain the biological
agent Bt (bacillus thuringiensis), traits that are not yet
widely available for tropical crops important to developing
countries. Transgenic crops have spread globally since 1996,
more in industrialized than in developing countries, covering
about 4% of the global cropland area in 2004 (CGIAR
Science Council, 2005).
Current trends indicate that transgenic crop production
is increasing in developing countries at a faster rate than in
industrialized nations (Brookes and Barfoot, 2006). This is
occurring against a background of escalating concerns in
the world’s poorest and most vulnerable regions regarding
environmental shocks that result from droughts, floods,
marginal soils, and depleting nutrient bases, leading to low
productivity. Plant breeding is fundamental to developing
crops better adapted to these conditions. The effectiveness
of biotechnologies will be augmented, however, by integrating
local and tacit knowledge and by taking into account
the wider infrastructural and social equity context. Taking
advantage of provisions under the international protocol
on biosafety (Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety) as well as
establishing national and regional regulatory regimes are essential
elements for using AKST in this domain.
1.2 Conceptual Framework of the IAASTD
1.2.1 Framework for analysis—centrality of knowledge
Conceptual framework of the AKST assessment (Figure
1-7). There is huge diversity and dynamics in agricultural
production systems, which depend on agroecosystems and
are embedded in diverse political, economic, social and cultural
contexts. Knowledge about these systems is complex.
The AKST assessment considers that knowledge is coproduced
by researchers, agriculturalists (farmers, forest users,
fishers, herders and pastoralists), civil society organizations
and public administration. The kind of relationship within
and between these key actors of the AKST system defines to
what degree certain actors benefit from, are affected by or
excluded from access to, control over and distribution of
knowledge, technologies, and financial and other resources
required for agricultural production and livelihoods. This
puts policies relating to science, research, higher education,
extension and vocational training, innovation, technology,
intellectual property rights (IPR), credits and environmental
impacts at the forefront of shaping AKST systems.
Knowledge, innovation and learning play a key role in
the inner dynamics of AKST. But it is important to note that
these inner dynamics depend on how the actors involved
respect, reject or re-create the values, rules and norms implied
in the networks through which they interrelate. The
IAASTD considers that its own dynamics strongly depend
on related development goals and expected outputs and services,
as well as on indirect and direct drivers mainly at the
macro level, e.g., patterns of consumption or policies.
The AKST model emphasizes the centrality of knowledge.
It is therefore useful to clarify the differences between
“information” and “knowledge”. Knowledge—in whatever
field—empowers those who create and possess it with the
capacity for intellectual or physical action (ICSU, 2003).
Knowledge is fundamentally a matter of cognitive capability,
skills, training and learning. Information, on the other
hand, takes the shape of structures and formatted data that
remain passive and inert until used by those with the knowledge
needed to interpret and process them (ICSU, 2003).
Information only takes on value when it is communicated
and there is a deep and shared understanding of what that
information means—thus becoming knowledge—both to
the sender and the recipient.
Such an approach has direct implications for the understanding
of science and technology. The conventional
distinction between science and technology is that science
is concerned with searching for and validating knowledge,
while technology concerns the application of such knowledge
in economic production (defined broadly to include
social welfare goals). In most countries institutional and organizational
arrangements are founded on this distinction.
However, this distinction is now widely criticized in contemporary
science and development literature, both from a
conceptual point of view and in terms of practical impacts.
Gibbons and colleagues are a good example of this critical
debate: they distinguish between “mode 1” and “mode
2” styles of knowledge development (Gibbons et al., 1994;
Nowotny et al., 2003). In very simple terms, the distinction
is that “mode 1” approaches (the traditional view) argue
for a complete organizational separation between scientific
research on the one hand and its practical applications
for economic and social welfare on the other. Conversely
“mode 2” approaches argue for institutional arrangements
that build science policy concerns directly into the conduct