marker-assisted selection in wheat - ictsd

448Marker-assisted selection – Current status and future perspectives in crops, livestock, forestry and fishreform package in Honduras, for example,involved around 80 meetings over a yearin which both Campesino and large-scaleproducer organizations participated, whilein Guyana more than 100 meetings of civilsociety task forces were held over severalyears (www.fao.org/docs/up/easypol//354/agrc_pl_str_cnpt_prct_031EN.pdf).Policies for agriculturalresearch and extensionThe absence of systematic and comparativedata on the benefits arising from theuse of different technologies in agricultureprecludes attaching priority to anyone approach. However, the high rates ofreturn and the reductions in both economic(Pardey and Beintema, 2001; Evansonand Gollin, 2003; Raizer, 2003) and noneconomicpoverty (Meinzen-Dick et al.,2004) are impressive by any standards,and justify many of the past investmentsmade in research and technology transfer.Consequently, it is hardly surprising thatmobilizing and directing national institutionsand skills towards capitalizing moreforcefully on the opportunities availablethrough S&T to meet the MDGs and otherglobal, regional and national targets areconsistently stated commitments withindifferent sectors and themes. Most noteworthyin this regard are the plan to achievethe MDGs prepared by the UN MillenniumProject and the underlying report of itsTask Forces on Science, Technology andInnovation (UN Millennium Project,2005a and 2005b), Africa’s S&T consolidatedplan of action (NEPAD, 2005), andthe CAADP and InterAcademy Councilreports on realizing the promise and potentialof agriculture in Africa (NEPAD, 2002;IAC, 2004).Yet, here again, judged by the content ofcurrent PRSPs and agricultural developmentplans, the vision of how S&T can contributeto enhancing the value of GRFA and therebyto achieving national economic and socialobjectives is invariably either missing, orthe belief is projected that “on the shelf”technologies and existing knowledge onlyhave to be adapted to local circumstances tomeet the challenges ahead.Unquestionably, policies and strategiespromoting adaptive research anddissemination of existing technologies witha successful track record must have highestpriority in the short term. However, prioritiesthat will respond to the needs ofsmall producers and rural households fornew technologies in 10 or 20 years time(and requiring more upstream strategic andapplied research) also need to be identifiednow because (and despite the claimsof some scientists), even with the availabilityof more advanced R&D methods andtools, there is no reason to believe that theuptake of new agricultural technologies willcontinue to be other than slow and incremental(described by Pardey and Beintema,2001, as “slow magic”). In this regard, theimportance of countries having pluralistic,participatory, client-focused, decentralizedand gender-sensitive advice on the processesof technology diffusion and adoptionshould be emphasized.Maximizing the relevance and futurecontributions of new technologies tooverall agricultural development alsorequires greater attention to planning anddecision-making about the direction andmanagement of the scientific techniquesand tools as well as the genetic resources towhich they will be applied in food and agricultureagainst the backdrop of current andlikely future driving forces of change.These forces include:• political policies, where, as outlinedpreviously, the new framework for