Contents & Foreword, Characterizing And ... - IRRI books

Characterization of production environments in agriculture is gaining considerableimportance for identifying the major constraints to production and technology adoption(ICRISAT 1998, CRIDA 1998). Characterization of production environments isusually undertaken to understand agroclimatic environments, resource endowments,and production and socioeconomic constraints to be able to identify and prioritizeresearch programs. Delineating homogeneous production environments makes it possibleto assess research capacity and gaps. This helps in designing need-based technologies,which are expected to reduce research and adoption lags. This enhancesagricultural research efficiency and accelerates the impact of investments in research.In the past, several characterization studies attempted to understand the targetresearch domains, mainly with respect to climate, insect pests, soils, etc. Althoughcharacterization information was largely used to delineate homogeneous agroecoregionsand production environments, and to a lesser extent design technologiesfor alleviating one or more production constraints, it was not further applied to assessthe feasibility of research programs. With shrinking research resources and increasinglycomplex problems in agriculture, there is a need to use characterization informationmore rigorously to assess research programs and improve research efficiency.In the past, increasing food-grain production to meet self-sufficiency was the majortarget of agricultural research.The new set of problems has broadened the agricultural research focus to addressthe sustainability of natural resources, the conservation of biodiversity, and otherareas. Publicly funded research has to meet multiple goals (e.g., equity, sustainability,food and nutritional security, diversification) in addition to efficiency issues for socialwelfare. The new paradigm therefore calls for effectively using characterizationinformation to better target and plan agricultural research programs.This chapter attempts to use characterization information for an ex ante assessmentof research programs to assist in the judicious use of scarce research resources,keeping in view the social objectives. The study focuses on the rainfed rice productionsystem in India, a system characterized by low productivity, slow and poor disseminationof new technologies, a large concentration of poor people, high degradationof natural resources, including biodiversity, and poor infrastructure. Althoughthis system is lagging far behind the irrigated and other favorable regions, considerablepotential and opportunities exist, as it possesses fairly good soils, high precipitation,enough human resources, and a large cattle population (Joshi et al 1999).The study is based on the projects submitted to the rainfed rice production systemin the rainfed ecoregion under the National Agricultural Technology Project(NATP). The World Bank approved a sum of US$239.70 million in 1998 to strengthenagricultural research in India. The World Bank and the government of India are sharingthe cost of the project. Its principal objective is to address the key constraints thatcurrently limit, and which if not addressed would in the future increasingly restrict,the efficient use of the public resources that India devotes to the generation, assessment,and transfer of agricultural technology. To facilitate the process, the country isdivided into five ecoregions: arid, coastal, hills and mountains, irrigated, and rainfed.The present exercise was done for the rainfed ecoregion.292 Joshi and Suresh Pal