Agricultural Research: Intellectual Property and the CGIAR System

Abstract

The CGIAR, founded in 1971, is an informal association of public and private donors that supports an international network of sixteen international agricultural research centres (IARCs), each with its own governing body. The major sponsors are the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Bank, the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Environment Programme and the aid programmes of the EU and a number of individual countries. With a budget of some US$340 million per annum, the CGIAR oversees the largest agricultural research effort in the developing world.