Institutional reforms for getting an agricultural knowledge system to play its role in economic growth

Pakistan Development Review, Winter, 1999 by Jock R. Anderson

5. TOWARDS AKIS REFORM

Most of the above remarks have been addressed specifically to agricultural research in the LDCs. But there are other key elements of the knowledge system pertaining to agricultural development and, in the section, suggestions for reforming all these key elements--agricultural research, agricultural extension and agricultural higher education, the constituents of an agricultural knowledge and information system (AKIS)--are set out in normative style. They represent lessons drawn from recent reviews of World Bank of experiences in the sector [Purcell and Anderson (1997); Byerlee and Alex (1998)], as well as deliberative consensus emerging among a Working Group formed between the Bank and FAO.

Since the green revolution, a steady stream of impressive technological advances has resulted from investment in AKISs, including crop varieties with greatly increased resistance to pests and diseases and vastly improved tolerance of abiotic stresses (such as drought). These improvements have reduced poverty among rural people while providing affordable food for the urban poor and limiting environmental degradation. Further advances are expected--stemming, for example, from biotechnology and other areas of molecular biology, from techniques of integrated pest management, and form no-till soil management.

Advances in the agricultural sciences are clearly crucial, but other advances are also needed. Recent accumulations in human, social, and institutional capital have combined with important advances in the social and natural sciences to expand our potential for meeting the challenge. Three areas of progress are key: in the changing relationships between governments and people; in information and communication technologies; and in new concepts of learning and problem solving.

Relationships are changing between government and people. Worldwide, although surely not uniformly, political and institutional developments are fundamentally altering the relationships between government and people, and governance issues are high on many political agenda. With increasing economic liberalisation, governments increasingly no longer provide services that can be more effectively offered by the private sector or civil-society organisations. The public sector is now generally concentrating on creating a policy and regulatory environment that catalyses private-sector initiative, and on improving the quality of services that only the government can offer. Through democratisation and decentralisation, local authorities and a wider range of community members are gaining a stronger voice in setting priorities for government actions. These developments can contribute to the potential for farmers (particularly the poor) to have greater access to inputs and better options for marketing their outputs. They also provide greater opportunities for farmers and their communities to determine the nature of services offered to them by government.

Communications and information technology are rapidly advancing. New developments are making it possible to share information widely, quickly, and cheaply. Except in extremely remote areas, most rural communities have access not only to national radio, but also increasingly to local and regional educational radio stations. The increase in access to telephones has been spectacular in recent years, particularly in very poor countries. Consequently, verbal and visual forms of communication are ever easier to establish and exploit. In this sense, rural people are becoming much less isolated from each other and from access to sources of advice and information. Rapidly increasing numbers of education, research, and extension institutions have fax and the Internet, thereby expanding access for rural people, and those seeking to help them, to written and electronic forms of information and communication. Researchers, extensionists, and educators, through their own increased access to radio, telephone, fax, and the Internet, are progressively able to reduce their isolation from professional dialogue and developments.