International agricultural research systems

Abstract

Technical change and the research processes that so importantly underlie much such change have been under accelerating scrutiny by agricultural econ­ omists in recent years. Hardly an issue of the journal Agricultural Economics appears without featuring new reports of the endeavours of economists in fur­ thering understanding of the economics of agricultural research. This Special Issue brings together several papers that relate to the general theme of agricultural research, particularly its international dimensions but not to the neglect of national activities. The late 1980s are and the early 1990s surely will also be a period of active ferment concerning policies for investment in agricultural research. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research ( CG IAR) is, for instance, in the process of considering its expansion to include a much wider set of activities than it has encompassed to date via its existing 13 International Agricultural Research Centres (IARCs) which have constituted a fairly stable system in recent years. It is thus an appropriate time to reconsider some of the many issues that policy makers must deal with in considering investment in agricultural research, whether of national or in­ ternational orientation. While donor-funded international agricultural research is surely tremen­ dously significant in itself and as a catalyst, and represents considerable on­ going investment of the order of about US$ 300 million annually, it is still small relative to the aggregate of investment in national agricultural research programs. It is thus appropriate to set the scene in this Special Issue by re­ viewing the recent and present structure of public support for agricultural re­ search in national systems. Pardey, Kang and Elliott draw on recently assem­ bled data of a relatively comparable nature to examine several features of a considerably sized sample of National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS ). Several hypotheses have been advanced about the organisation and structure of NARS, and these are examined in their cross-sectional tabulation of sum­ mary data about the size and importance of research expenditures in countries of diverse size and agro-ecological setting. While some countries are spending what seem to be considerable and in­ creasing amounts on research, many others languish with small and weak sys