marker-assisted selection in wheat - ictsd

Chapter 22 – Marker-assisted selection: policy considerations and options for developing countries 463their suitability for local environments,they can be released to producers;• to increase awareness among policy- anddecision-makers of the importance ofimproving GRFA through a multidisciplinaryapproach including molecularmethods to their national economies andpoverty reduction strategies. Opportunitiesfor doing so include throughadvocacy within national policy dialogueprocesses and within FAO’s Commissionon Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture,and by its country representativesand staff in regional and subregionaloffices during the processes of revisingPRSPs and agricultural developmentpolicies; and• subject to increased investment for highpriority activities, training and capacitybuildingin selection and breeding proceduresshould precede the introductionof molecular approaches. Both should beinitiated through close collaboration withinternational, regional and/or nationalcentres.MAS: Other policy considerationsand optionsFew people would question the stark realitiesof doing any kind of R&D in the vastmajority of developing countries and ofgetting the products generated from it tothe rural poor and hungry. ConductingR&D directed towards MAS raises the barconsiderably in terms of its requirementsfor organizational, scientific, technical andlegal skills, as well as for physical infrastructureand financial resources. Funds,however, for public sector agriculturalR&D in all but a handful of developingcountries are becoming ever more scarce.While data on spending and humanresources for modern biotechnologyapplications in agriculture are not available,inflation-adjusted spending on agriculturalR&D as a whole is now growing at muchlower rates than in the 1970s and currentlyruns at around US cents 53 for every US$100of agricultural output (Pardey et al., 2006).In developed countries, public researchfunding actually fell by 6 percent per yearduring the 1990s, but is still running atthe rate of US$2.36 per US$100 worth ofagricultural output. This reflects a strongshift in funding priorities away from publicR&D by both governments and donors.However, the big differences betweenthese groups of countries lie in two broadand interconnected areas. First, in theirlevels of private investment. In developingcountries, this runs at between 8 percent (inAsia and Pacific, but in only a few countries)and 2 percent (in sub-Saharan Africa, with66 percent of that being in South Africa),and by and large is devoted to export cropsand conducted by locally-owned companiesor affiliates of multinationals. In countriesof the Organisation for Economic Cooperationand Development (OECD), suchinvestments now form around 55 percentof their total agricultural R&D spending(Pardey et al., 2006), with 93 percent of thatR&D being performed in these countries.The second difference lies in theorganization/orientation of their research.In developed countries, there is a muchclearer division of labour between thepublic and private sectors. This generallyconforms to the notions of “public goods”and profit/market-oriented R&D, althoughfor MAS this demarcation differs acrosscommodities and is often characterized bypublic–private sector research collaboration.For example, MAS-related R&D activitiesconducted by public sector institutionsare very much oriented towards basic orstrategic research to develop and validatenew knowledge, methods and procedures