marker-assisted selection in wheat - ictsd

466Marker-assisted selection – Current status and future perspectives in crops, livestock, forestry and fishBox 5Brazil’s sectoral fundsTo promote high-quality research and development in Brazil’s industrial sector, the nationalgovernment established a programme of “sectoral funds” in which a percentage of corporatetaxes are targeted to funding specific research and development objectives. The sectoral fundsprogramme serves four major national objectives:• stability of financial resources for medium- and long-term research and development;• transparency in funding decisions, merit review and evaluation;• reduction of regional inequalities; and• interaction between universities, research institutes and companies.The selection of strategic sectors, their respective shares of the funds’ resources, the blendof basic and applied research, the required overall budget, and sources of support are alljointly decided upon by the indigenous academic community, private sector, and government.No new taxes are involved, just the redirection of already-established government levies. Acomprehensive set of 14 funds has been established. It includes agriculture, biotechnology,informatics and university-industry research.their S&T spending from 0.5 to 1 percentof GDP.• use wider or specific agriculture legislation,tax breaks, public S&T funds andfunds from donors to provide incentivesfor public and private sector involvementin MAS and public–private, civil societycollaboration.Governments and development agencieshave shown increasing interest inpartnerships as a mechanism to promotemarket-driven development. Byerlee andFischer (2001) provide an excellent reviewon the subject of enhancing public–privatepartnerships for transfer of genes andconstructs for GM crops, and some of theprinciples and mechanisms described arealso relevant to MAS. However, outside ofthe Latin American region where Hartwich,Gonzalez and Veira (2005) conducted astudy of 124 cases of such partnerships inagricultural innovation, including a numberdealing with basic and applied researchon plant breeding, the evidence that thesemake research more efficient or “deliver”more or better products to small-scaleproducers is not strong. Indeed, ensuringthat these partnerships comply with publicneeds was found to be one of the majorchallenges in these partnerships.Nevertheless, there are clear signs ofsuch partnerships flourishing for both basicand applied MAS-related R&D activitiesin industrialized countries. With strongand enlightened leadership on both sidescoupled with matching interests, opportunitiesshould also be available for NARESto benefit both from the molecular technologyplatforms and from the selectionand breeding experiences of industrializedcountry-based private sector entities(Chapter 8), as well as from cooperationwith their developing country affiliates,local private companies, NGOs and producerorganizations in taking the productsfrom the laboratory to the field.At the same time, the nature and scopeof IPRs for genetic resources, the research