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

16 | IAASTD Global Report
Figure 1-9. Child malnutrition (low height for age) among preschool children in surveys since 1999.
Source: Rosegrant et al., 2006
of this role may increase and become central for human survival
on this planet.
1.2.3 Agricultural Knowledge, Science and
Technology (AKST)
A challenge for formal AKST is the great imbalance in numbers
of researchers per million inhabitants: this number is
65 times smaller in Africa than in industrialized countries
(Hurni et al., 2001). Nearly half of public agricultural research
expenditures, amounting to US$23.0 billion in 2000,
are spent in developed countries, i.e., benefiting only a
few million, though highly productive, farmers (Pardey et
al., 2006). While private agricultural research spending is
somewhat higher than public spending in developed countries,
private spending in developing countries is very low,
accounting for only 8% of total public and private investments
in AKST (see chapter 8 for details of AKST investment
levels).
Public agricultural research in industrial countries also
benefits farmers in other countries, since much public agricultural
research is basic research that may later be applied
to a variety of agricultural settings through technology transfer,
and public research often leads to publicly available crop
varieties that are widely distributed. Traditional experimental
systems and many emerging farmers’ programs—some
initiated by international institutions such as FAO but most
from farmers’ organizations and social movements—are
also considered as a component of agricultural research.
Regional shares in public agricultural research expendi-
tures have been changing in the past 40 years (Pardey et al.,
2006). While overall investments nearly doubled, industrialized
countries, which had 55% of all investments in 1981,
received a smaller share—44% in 2000, while in China and
other Asian states investments increased manyfold. In general,
research and development (R&D) investments have so
far generated high returns (Byerlee and Alex, 2003; Chapter
8.2), however at a high ecological cost. For example, trends
in cereal production since 1960 show that area productivity
increased by a factor of 2.5 in industrialized countries,
from 2.1 to 4.9 tonnes ha -1 on average on a total of 140 million
hectares. In developing countries, the factor was even
higher, i.e., 2.8, and the increase was from 1 to 2.8 tonnes
ha -1 on a total cropped area of 440 million ha (Cassman,
2003). It must be noted, however, that stagnation in land
productivity increase has been observed in many areas since
about 1985 (Cassman, 2003).
Some recent changes in thinking have raised a number
of cognate issues in formal AKST systems. The policy
agenda has evolved from a formal “science push” approach
to one that places more emphasis on participatory, multistakeholder,
inter- and transdisciplinary, and client-driven
research agendas. Donors, supranational structures, regional
organizations, and governments are looking for stronger interinstitutional
support for development projects in order
to attract private sector investments. Largely, this has been
driven by changing contexts and circumstances since the
days of the Green Revolution. Perhaps the biggest challenge
is to fill the gap in research and technology that is relevant