CGIAR Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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The Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is a network of research laboratories and largely public-sector organizations that was formed in 1971, at a time when it was feared that massive famine was likely throughout the developing world. The CGIAR focused on the productivity of agriculture, and success in this area helped prevent at least some of the projected famines. The roots of the network were nurtured by the co-operation between the U.S. government, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Mexican government in the 1940s to identify methods of increasing agricultural production. A team of scientists led by Norman Borlaug, who won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize, managed to develop semi-dwarf varieties of wheat that tripled yields of this cereal and helped make Mexico self-sufficient in food production. The CGIAR was created to extend this successful research to other parts of Latin America, Nigeria, and the Philippines.

Research centers were established in Colombia, Nigeria, and the Philippines in the late 1960s. To create the CGIAR on a firm basis, a series of consultative meetings was scheduled with key future partners in the World Bank, British and American governments, the United Nations (U.N.), and the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations. World Bank President Robert McNamara pushed through an agreement in which his institution would take a leading role in promoting the Green Revolution. His success led to a significant increase in the scope and size of World Bank activities, with several thousands of scientists trained at its newly opening facilities and the new varieties of wheat being planted around many parts of the developing world. The CGIAR has subsequently gone on to achieve many successful improvements in global agriculture. The original objectives adopted by the CGIAR were to examine the needs of developing countries for specialized efforts in agriculture; harmonize international, regional, and national efforts to finance and undertake agricultural research; provide finance for high priority agricultural research activities; and to undertake continuing review of priorities. A Technical Advisory Committee was also established to provide an independent source of advice about technical and scientific issues to guide board members.

Fifteen separate research institutes are currently members of the network: the Africa Rice Center in Benin; the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical in Colombia; the Center for International Forestry Research in Indonesia; the Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo in Mexico; the Centro Internacional de la Papa in Peru; the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas in Syria; the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics in India; the International Food Policy Research Institute in the United States; the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria; the International Livestock Research Institute in Kenya; the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute in Italy; the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines; the International Water Management Institute in Sri Lanka; the World Agroforestry Center in Kenya; and the WorldFish Center in Malaysia.

This network is governed by a series of institutions and councils led customarily by an executive from the World Bank. Disharmony has broken out from time to time concerning the proper future directions of the CGIAR and the research on which it focuses. The early successes achieved by the CGIAR in improving agricultural production in a range of different crops and animal livestock have meant that its scientists have been able to consider a broader range of research topics. However, it has been argued by some that the CGIAR’s choice of such activities has been inappropriate in some cases in that they do not reflect the core competencies and competitive advantage that the network has to offer; further, more attention should be paid to private sector research and the growing importance of intellectual property rights (IPR) in the research process. These issues are reflective of a larger controversy about IPR that divides the developing world from the developed world. The latter, so it is claimed, is using IPR to obtain inequitably higher levels of control and influence over agricultural production in the former. By awarding IPR production to private sector products and then aggressively marketing them to developing world farmers, it is feared that the international community will be able to control those farmers and lock them into purchasing comparatively high-cost products from companies in developed countries.

Bibliography:

Eran Binenbaum, Philip G. Pardey, and Brian Wright, “Public-Private Research Relationships: The Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research,” American Journal of Agricultural Economics (v.83/3, 2001);
CGIAR, www.cgiar.org;
Uma Lele, The CGIAR at 31: An Independent Meta-Evaluation of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (World Bank Publications, 2004).