IFPRI chief calls for more publicly-funded research

By G. Venkataramani

CHENNAI, SEPT. 20. ``If we need to feed the world's rising population without devastating the world's agricultural ecosystems, we need much more publicly-funded research focussed on agricultural development for small-scale farmers in developing nations.

``Currently, the bulk of the agricultural research is financed by the private sector and is geared mostly towards the needs of farmers in affluent countries,'' says Dr. Per Pinstrup-Andersen, Director General of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington D.C. The 2001-World Food Prize Winner, Dr. Pinstrup- Andersen said, in a recent interview in Bonn, Germany, that given the enormous importance of these issues, the donor nations must rise to this challenge. ``The lives of future generation and the health of our planet depend on it.'' Discussing the sustainable food security for all by 2020, Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen said that about 800 million people were food insecure - either they starved or they did not know from where their next meal would come. Much of the food security had occurred at the expense of the environment. ``Our studies have shown that with business as usual, the nutritional improvements in the next 20 years will be less than the improvements made during the last 20 years and environmental degradation will continue,'' he pointed out.

Solutions to food and nutrition problems needed to be designed and implemented within a new and rapidly changing environment. Globalisation and sweeping technological changes offered new opportunities for solving these problems. But changes in policies and institutions were needed to turn these opportunities into benefits for the poor and malnourished. According to him, without a new policy agenda, globalisation and new technology may bypass the poor or actually do them harm.

``Unless the solution for food and nutrition problems are given a much higher priority by governments everywhere, the human misery and economic waste embodied in food insecurity and malnutrition will continue at high levels,'' said Dr. Pinstrup- Andersen. Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen is a distinguished food-policy economist and he has been IFPRI's Director General since 1992.

Reacting to the present paradoxical situation in India where the buffer stock of foodgrains swelled while millions of people starved, Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen said the problem of surplus food in the country was not due to increased foodgrain production, but due to insufficient purchasing power among millions of food- insecure people. ``If you want to deal with surplus foodgrains and starvation, you have to invest in less favoured areas to enhance the incomes of the poor. It will be a win-win situation, where more poor will benefit and economic growth will increase faster. It will be a long-term sustainable solution,'' he explained.

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