1. Sustaining Technological Progress in Agriculture
Cees de Haan
World Bank

2. Overview of Presentation
Three key words of the title:
Agriculture;
Technology;
Development
Delivery
Sustainability.
…. Implementation and cooperation

3. Agriculture technology is important
Agriculture still the engine of rural growth;
Source of employment for half developing countries labor force;
Agriculture is facing new productivity challenges
Increasing land and water scarcity, shifting demand (“the Livestock Revolution”, other high value products)
Agriculture is facing new quality challenges
Trade liberalization, urbanization and increased consumer demands,

4. But lending for Agriculture is declining

5. And the same for agricultural technology

6. With an apparent low share for research
Total Loan Commitments in the Research and Extension Portfolio, 2002

7. Key components of agricultural growth:
Improvement in the productivity of the entire food chain, by improving factor productivity, competitiveness, access to markets;
Diversification of agriculture and boosting high-value products;
Reduction of post-harvest losses and
Tailoring agenda according to the major farm types
Source: Reaching the Rural Poor

9. C: Subsistence Farmers
Strategy
Targeting investments to poorer regions, minorities, etc
Strengthening local institutions and organizations that can best support farmers with scarce resources and develop market-oriented enterprises.
Facilitating participatory development of local infrastructure and technology in collaboration with NGOs.
Poverty Impact
Development of human and social capital necessary to address wider problems.
Development of niche commodities such as organic produce that are labor intensive.
Reduction of vulnerability
Employment generation

10. B: Small Market Oriented Farmers
Strategy
Developing an efficient agricultural technology system to meet the needs of small farmers.
Supporting innovative communication systems to supply relevant information on production, markets and alternative crops.
Promoting small farmers’ organizations to coordinate input and marketing needs.
Poverty Impact
Broad-based growth to generate income for small-scale farmers.
Increased productivity to reduce food prices for non-tradables.

11. A: Commercial Farmers Poverty impacts Strategy
Assistance to develop and employ food and biosafety regulations and systems for quality assurance, traceability and certification
Strengthening of legal frameworks for property rights to promote private R&D and secure tenancy.
Strengthening producer organizations to represent member interests and promote initiatives in the industry.
Supporting development of diverse and competitive agricultural/agro-industrial innovation systems based on user-financing and private service delivery.
Poverty impacts
Development of labor-intensive high-value systems to generate employment for the poor.
Increasing productivity to reduce food prices for non-tradables

13. Focus in Technology Generation
Technology generation should become more holistic:
Cover the entire food chain (farm to table);
Greater attention to efficiency of input use (water, feed grain);
Use all tools (traditional breeding and bio-technology, agro-ecological approaches, IT);
Become much more client driven; and
Strengthen public and private partnerships and private investments.
i.e. technological progress in agriculture needs to become more pluralistic and knowledge intensive, less dependent on the “silver bullet”

14. Focus in Technology Delivery
Evolving concepts and approaches
Greater differentiation between public, commercial and private services
Public services, where market failures occur (poor, NRM, organizations)
Commercial and private services where markets function
Pluralistic institutional arrangements
Decentralized, participatory, competitive.
Experimentation with new approaches
ICT, mass media, etc.

15. Issues in Technological Services
Crowding out by the State and donors;
Seed (testing, parastatals), fertilizer (subsidies), emergency aid;
Poor being marginalized
Economies of scale in food safety and quality
Sustainability of investments;
Financial and institutional

16. Sustainability and poverty focus

17. Sustainability of Completed World Bank Project
Interventions, with a lasting impact

18. Discussion of OED factors in ICR [FY1998-2000, n=75 projects]

19. Key Factors affecting Sustainability

20. Project documentation on poverty focus by sector [FY99-00, n=92 projects]

21. Conclusion: Seek to increase investments in agriculture;
Enhance the poverty impact
Pay particular attention to post-investment financing mechanisms; and
Develop pluralistic approaches to technology generation and delivery.

22. RRP approach: development of sustained political support for the sector
Two main thrusts:
Develop national “home grown” rural strategies, involving all stakeholders, for integration in new development planning instruments (PRSP, CAS) to establish domestic power base for rural areas; and
Scale up areas of good practice to reach increased number of poor to convince politicians of the benefits of rural investments.

23. Key Issue: How to get into the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP)
Poverty focused, client (country) driven, multi-sectoral, strategy papers
Main input into Bank’s Country Assistance Program (CAS);
Leading to fewer, programmatic, multi-sectoral lending operations.
How can we ensure that the need for technological progress is adequately heard in this broader and more competitive environment

24. Key issue: How do we scale-up good practices?
Criteria for up-scalable good practice:
Contribution to poverty reduction, cover large population, low investment per capita, suitable for partnering and programmatic lending.
Key candidates: CDD, land reform, watershed development, financing mechanisms for technology generation
Key issue: HOW ,

25. Institutional
Vertical scaling up through policy or administrative change
Socio-economic, technical
Horizontal scaling up,
e.g. farmer to farmer
Innovation
with impact
Human
Natural resource
local
province
national

26. Inputs into scaling up “good practice”
Elements
Unbundling the practice
Evaluating the practice
Successes and failures
Introduction into the policy dialogue and priority setting; and
demand vs. supply driven
Knowledge management, including learning mechanisms.

27. Key areas of cooperation
Working jointly on agricultural approach paper
Expanding the political foundation
Assisting in development of “homegrown” rural strategies;
Working jointly on institutional issues in technology
Sustainability, participatory priority setting;
Working on scaling up
Evaluation, methodologies
Participating in project preparation.
How: Short missions, Secondment, Sabaticals, Staff exchange etc,
Issue for discussion: How to finance cooperation

28. Thank you