Technology development and adoption rates: Systems approach for agricultural research and extension

Adoption of new technology in peasant agriculture remains lower than expected. Failure to achieve expected returns is associated more with insufficiencies in the conduct of research than with external and economic factors such as price structure or lack of agricultural support services. This article sets out the case for national agricultural research and extension structures that emphasize on-farm research with a systems approach.     

Population and labour force projections for agricultural planning

Population plays a major part in determining labour supply and the agricultural population is a particularly important population segment in developing countries. After examining the framework for projecting the agricultural population the authors look at the assumptions behind previous projections. They examine alternative methods that appear to be applicable in a wide variety of circumstances taking into account the limited data availability in many countries. Future work should move from the analysis of past trends of demographic variables to methods based on relationships between demographic variables and economic and social variables.     

Introduction to understanding agricultural development and change: Learning from Vietnam

Agriculture is the backbone of most developing economies and structural transformation an important vehicle for economic development in low-income agrarian contexts. This special issue brings together a set of high quality academic studies to answer key research questions of importance to understanding agricultural development and change in developing country settings. Using the case of Vietnam, this collection provides comprehensive analytical contributions, that rely on detailed microdata, to understand crucial topics within the fields of agricultural and development economics. Together, these studies provide important insights into the mechanisms underlying structural transformation and its consequences that can contribute to the design of policies to manage the structural transformation process effectively, particularly for the most vulnerable groups in society.     

Systems of innovation theory and the changing architecture of agricultural research in Africa

This paper examines the on-going evolution of the organisational architecture of agricultural research in Africa. Once considered a rural backwater populated by agronomists, extension agents and farmers, agricultural research is now being explicitly placed within global debates about innovation, technology, institutions and development. This is reflected in a growing interest in the use of systems of innovation theory to both understand and reform innovation processes within agriculture. The basic argument put forward in the paper is that the conception of a global agricultural research system, and associated efforts to create a coordinated, multi-layered, supra-national research infrastructure, are at odds with both the realities of research at national level, and the bio-physical and socio-economic heterogeneity that characterises rural Africa. It is suggested that a less directive approach to support for agricultural research is required to allow national characteristics and differences to come to the fore, and to give more room for the development of the all important demand-side.     

Returns to food and agricultural R&D investments in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1975–2014

Research-enabled growth in agricultural productivity is pivotal to sub-Saharan Africa’s overall economic growth prospects. Yet, investments in research and development (R&D) targeted to many national food and agricultural economies throughout Africa are fragile and faltering. To gain insight into what could be driving this trend, this article updates, summarizes and reassesses the published evidence on the returns to African agricultural R&D. Based on a compilation of 113 studies published between 1975 and 2014 spanning 25 countries, the reported internal rates of return (IRRs) to food and agricultural research conducted in or of direct consequence for sub-Saharan Africa averaged 42.3%py. In addition to the 376 IRR estimates, the corresponding 129 benefit-cost ratios (BCRs) averaged 30.1. Most (96.5%) of the returns-to-research evaluations are of publicly performed R&D, and the majority (87.6%) of the studies were published in the period 1990–2009. The large dispersion in the reported IRRs and BCRs makes it difficult to discern meaningful patterns in the evidence. Moreover, the distribution of IRRs is heavily (positively) skewed, such that the median value (35.0%py) is well below the mean, like it is for research done elsewhere in the world (mean 62.4%py; median 38.0%py). Around 78.5% of the evaluations relate to the commodity-specific consequences of agricultural research, while 5.5% report on the returns to an “all agriculture” aggregate. The weight of commodity-specific evaluation evidence is not especially congruent with the composition of agricultural production throughout Africa, nor, to the best that can be determined, the commodity orientation of public African agricultural R&D.     

The impact of agricultural research on productivity and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa

While it is widely recognized that agricultural research is a key driver of broad-based technological change in agriculture that benefits the poor in many different ways, little is known about its aggregate impacts on productivity growth and poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Using a polynomial distributed lag structure for agricultural research within a simultaneous system of equations framework, this paper first demonstrates that agricultural research contributes significantly to productivity growth in SSA. Productivity growth is again shown to raise per capita incomes, with income increases finally having significant poverty-reducing effects. With an aggregate rate of return of 55%, the payoffs to agricultural research are also impressive. Agricultural research currently reduces the number of poor by 2.3 million or 0.8% annually. While the actual impacts are not large enough to more than offset the poverty-increasing effects of population growth and environmental degradation, the potential impacts of agricultural research are far greater. Apart from low research investments, SSA faces several constraints outside the research system that hinder realization of potential research benefits. The results show that doubling research investments in SSA would reduce poverty by 9% annually. However, this would not be realized without more efficient extension, credit, and input supply systems.     

The new political economy of food and agricultural development

This paper emphasizes the benefits of an agricultural strategy of development in developing countries. It begins by analyzing the close links between food and employment in the development process. In an underdeveloped country, food production is minimal, but demand is as well because of the small population growth. After development begins, income rises and food demand outstrips production. Only at later stages of development can food production meet demand. The middle stage of development describes most developing countries, which have averaged annual growth rates of 3% per capita in 1966-80. The growth in food demand must be met through technological advance in agriculture: high-yield seeds, fertilizers, and irrigation, which, for example, helped India increase cereal yields 29% between 1954-55 and 1964-65. The rate of growth in cropped areas has declined between 1961-1980, making increased yields more necessary. Growth in employment and income leads to higher food demand, which leads to higher prices and labor costs and a tendency towards capital-intensive agriculture. As the rural sector becomes wealthier, there is also more opportunity for non-agricultural rural workers, creating still more demand. In the final development stage, agricultural products can generate foreign exchange. In Asia, the priority is to ensure efficient outcomes of capital allocations, while in Africa, technology must be instituted. Public investment has been shown to be essential to rapid development in Japan, Taiwan, and the Punjab of India. The absence of this investment in Africa, partly because of an overemphasis on urban sector investment, is largely responsible for the backward state of African agriculture. Often rural areas are overtaxed, agricultural experts are lacking, and there is a growing presence of urban bureaucrats. Both experts in the donor community and farmers themselves must become more vocal in demanding investment in the agricultural sector.     

Towards regional food security in southern Africa: a (new) policy framework for the agricultural sector

In the southern African Region (SAR) large populations, mainly concentrated in rural areas, face food insecurity and poverty. Food insecurity is intensified by adverse weather conditions and droughts which impact negatively on farm level food production throughout the region. Agriculture constitutes an important economic sector in the majority of countries in the region. This is measured as share of agricultural value added to the GDP and as agriculture's share in employment. Based on these facts alone, it must be obvious that sustained agricultural performance will play a significant role in the improvement of food security and livelihoods in the region. However, food security is not only attained in rural areas and by the consumption of home produced food stuffs. Urbanisation is expected to increase dramatically over the next few decades and feeding the urban masses, at affordable prices, must be considered to be a high future priority for governments in the region. Food security must not be viewed as an agricultural issue per se. The drive to food self sufficiency through domestic agriculture production in many countries in the region did not enable these countries to feed their own population. Food security should rather be defined as the acquirement of sufficient and nutritious quantities of food (Sen, 1981, Poverty and Famines: An essay on Entitlement and Deprivation). An approach, whereby attention is given to the macro level availability of food, access to income streams as well as improved production capacity to acquire food at a household level and the utilisation of nutritious food, should therefore be guiding food security policies (SADC: FSTAU, 1997, A Strategic Framework for Food Security in the Region). This broader view emphasises household level poverty reduction, economic development and growth as important components of a food security strategy (World Food Summit, Rome, 1996). An important issue which therefore needs to be explored is whether agriculture does have the potential to contribute to economic processes, which will support broad based development and food security. This paper is intended to argue the importance of agricultural development for food security in the region and to develop a diverse policy framework to strengthen this new, more comprehensive role of agriculture in the region.     

Food sovereignty and agricultural trade policy commitments: How much leeway do West African nations have?

The 2008 food crisis has challenged the political legitimacy and economic efficiency of the liberalization of international agricultural trade. An alternative vision defended by the food sovereignty movement is that long-term food security cannot rely on dependency on food imports, but must be built on the development of domestic production with enough barrier protection to shelter it from world price fluctuations and unfair trading.The purpose of this paper is to look into whether the West African nations can achieve food sovereignty given their various trade commitments and other external constraints. The particularity of our approach is to combine a historical economic analysis with a political approach to food sovereignty and trade commitments.Our results suggest that external brakes on the development of food sovereignty policies are marginal, as the countries still have unused room for manoeuvre to protect their smallholder agriculture under the terms of draft World Trade Organization agreements and Economic Partnership Agreements and under the international financial institutions’ recommendations. Rather the international environment seems to be instrumented by West African states that do not manage to secure a national political consensus to drive structural reforms deemed vital and further the food security of the urban populations over the marginalized rural populations. Recently, the regional integration process has made headway with a common agricultural support and protection policy project that could herald an internal political balance more conducive to food-producing agriculture.     

Priorities in agricultural research

This article is a personal reflection on priorities in agricultural research, priorities which can only be seriously formulated in relation to an overall strategy for agriculture, food and nutrition. Dr Ulbricht identifies three main areas of agricultural research — that which is universal in application and involves a substantial increase in knowledge, that which is generally universal in application but is defining new technologies and that which is directed to defining new technologies for specific local situations. He emphasises the importance of the latter which has been greatly neglected and is of particular importance in developing countries.     

Population,food and agricultural development: A medium-term view

Trends identified in 86 developing countries over the last 15–20 years indicate that the increase in food production was less than that in domestic demand for food in as many as 53, and 34 failed even to keep up with population growth. The author presents the likely perspective for the next 10 years. His analysis focuses on accelerating the increase in food production; an equitable and efficient distribution particularly among the poorer sections of the population; increasing employment in agriculture and related sectors; and increasing the share of developing countries in expanded trade in agriculture products.     

Jobs and agricultural policy: Impact of the common agricultural policy on EU agricultural employment

This paper investigates the relationship between EU agricultural subsidies and the outflow of labor from agriculture. We use more representative subsidy indicators and a wider coverage (panel data from 210 EU regions over the period 2004-2014) than has been used before. The data allow to better correct for sample selection bias than previous empirical studies. We find that, on average, CAP subsidies reduce the outflow of labor from agriculture, but the effect is almost entirely due to decoupled Pillar I payments. Coupled Pillar I payments have no impact on reducing labor outflow from agriculture, i.e. on preserving jobs in agriculture. The impact of Pillar II is mixed. Our estimates predict that an increase of 10 percent of the CAP budget would prevent an extra 16,000 people from leaving the EU agriculture sector each year. A 10 percent decoupling would save 13,000 agricultural jobs each year. However, the budgetary costs are large. The estimated cost is more than € 300,000 per year (or more than € 25,000 per month) per job saved in agriculture.     

Land inequality,government ideology and agricultural protection

This paper presents an empirical investigation of how agricultural land ownership inequality and government ideology (right-wing vs. left-wing) affect agricultural protection. Theoretically, the links are quite ambiguous, switching from positive to negative depending on the structure of the underlying political economic model – i.e. pressure groups vs. median voter approach. The data show, overall, that protection is decreasing in land inequality and with left-wing government orientation, but not in a linear fashion: left-wing governments tend to support agriculture in more unequal societies. There is some evidence that the relationship holds better in democracies than in dictatorships.     

Cost-benefit analysis of agricultural research: hybrid maize reconsidered

This paper reviews the use of benefit-cost ratio, and the internal or external rate of return for ex post and ex ante assessment of agricultural research projects. The classic data on hybrid maize are used to illustrate unsatisfactory features of these criteria. In the absence of practicable optimization procedures, it is suggested that the net benefits of projects might be quantified, then judgment exercised on patterns of resource usage as well as on social consequences. Present value of net benefits is sensitive to discount rate and to the base year taken for discounting, but an ‘equivalent annual flow’ is a useful alternative form of expression. It is finally pointed out that the rejection of the high rates of return on agricultural research published in many retrospective studies does not weaken the case for investment in agricultural research which has to be determined by national needs. If, in the past, science was pursued for its own sake, nowadays it is being asked whether national expenditure on scientific research can also be justified in economic terms. Agricultural research would seem to be a particularly suitable area for studying this question since it is largely publicly funded, and agricultural benefits tend to accrue to the community as a whole in its capacity as a consumer of food.     

Agricultural policies and general economic policy : The Polish experience

Agricultural planning in Poland is an integral part of the central planning process of the socialist state. For agriculture, central planning is combined with the influence of a controlled market which makes use of various market mechanisms. The authors review agricultural planning in relation to general economic policy and show that with a largely peasant agriculture its productivity is intimately connected with the productivity of the whole economy. In planning income, the rule used is that the income of the agricultural population should increase proportionally with that of the nonagricultural population. The implications of this in the present five-year plan are discussed.     

The state's role in financing agricultural research

Recent declines in public agricultural research funding in developing countries may not be as severe or as universal as widely perceived, although some research systems are clearly constrained. An analysis of the economic characteristics of agricultural research suggests that there may be some crowding-out of private finance, but the harnessing of additional private resources depends critically on enhancing the profitability and appropriability of research benefits, while the case for increasing levels of public funding on research with greater public good characteristics remains strong. However, the justifiable scrutiny of the state's role in financing agricultural research should not be at the expense of continued efforts to improve the efficiency of agricultural research delivery and the management of existing funds.     

新疆农业产业化发展策略研究

推进农业产业化经营,是促进农业转型升级、建设现代农业的必由之路,是提高农业效益、增加农民收入的重要途径,是转变农业发展方式、实施"三化"带动"三农"的重要手段。目前新疆正处在农业产业化加速发展的关键时期和跨越式发展的重要阶段,因此,积极发展农业产业化战略,对新疆农业发展和经济提升有着重要的推动作用。     

Environmental adversity and food policy in the Arab Gulf states

Since the oil embargo of 1973, the Gulf states have emerged as an overwhelming financial power. However, apart from Iraq, the spiral in oil revenue has had little effect in promoting the development of agriculture. Historically, interest in agricultural development has been invariably linked to agricultural potential. Thus, if potential was very limited, interest in development would be minimal. This article takes an opposite view, suggesting that agricultural development may be important even under harsh ecological conditions, and that the limiting factor is the lack of skilled manpower needed to cope with the management of complex enterprise systems.     

油井压裂选井方法在C油田中的应用

随着油田的不断深入开发,压裂改造是油藏开发获取工业油流的必须手段。为确保油井压裂的效果与经济效益,提升油井压裂方案的符合率,避免传统上压裂选井的经验性与盲目性,依据近些年来压裂选井的实践,应用模糊数学分析的方法,建立了适合C油田的压裂选井方法,即模糊评判分析方法。通过对模型进行实际运算应用,其结果与该地区实际压裂的施工结果具有很好的符合性。研究成果为C油田可持续开发奠定基础,对于指导油田压裂选井工作具有重要意义。