Science and Technology Mailing List Archive

["Farrar, Curt (IFPRI)" <<address removed>>]

Colleagues,

The science and technology discussion is getting into details, perhaps
beyond our capacity to handle them coherently. I should like to make a
single broad point, provoked by the comment from Moses Ochieng, although
also relevant to other contributions. I write from the perspective of IFPRI
in Washington DC, and a long association in various roles with USAID and the
CGIAR.

Science and technology makes its contribution to reducing rural poverty in
developing countries over a long continuum running from public and private
laboratories doing advanced science to the fields where poor farmers are
working, and indeed to the homesteads where food is prepared and consumed.
Valuable, even essential, contributions are made by people and institutions
at various levels, because of unique skills and perspectives. It is just
plain wrong to claim a monopoly of  resources and attention for any level,
as Moses Ochieng appears to do for participatory research involving poor
farmers.

It seems clear that research at the level of village fields will not be able
to come up with methods of preventing and/or curing major livestock
diseases, finding natural enemies for introduced pests damaging crops
important to poor farmers, introducing higher levels of micronutrients into
staple crops, engineering varieties with improved resistance to drought and
salinity, or overcoming the yield ceilings on staple crops which all
projections indicate must be done if the people of the world are to be fed
at the middle of this century. Progress on any of these fronts can have an
important impact on the level of poverty and the quality of life for the
poor. At the same time, generalization over small or large areas of
farmer-led innovations, as well as adaptations of scientific advances to the
requirements of microenvironments, are equally important to the achievement
of the Millennium goals, as are activities at the many levels in between.

Each of us argues for needs we see directly. As a resident of a CGIAR
center, I am very much aware of the serious disarray of the CG system and
its components, and the urgent need for leadership and resources in that
milieu. Given its historical importance in the CGIAR, I think it is critical
for DFID to engage with other donors in trying to overcome these problems.
But I would not argue that in doing so, it should ignore the other critical
elements of the science and technology continuum in support of the rural
poor.

Curtis Farrar


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