THAILAND: Declining Public Funds for Farm Research Worry Experts

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, May 30 2002 (IPS) - Rice farmers in Thailand’s north-eastern region of Isaan are among those who would benefit from an international push to secure more funds for agriculture research.

This need — more public investment to boost agriculture research — will be a key theme at the forthcoming World Food Summit in Rome, says R.B. Singh, head of the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) Asia-Pacific office here.

“Isaan farmers are among those we have in mind in this effort,” he adds. “They need research to help improve the quality of their products and also ways of cutting cost of production to stay competitive.”

Public researchers should be able to offer farmers guidance to cope with pests and new diseases that threaten to destroy their fields, Singh explains.

The rice farmers in Isaan, who account for almost two million of Thailand’s 3.7 million rice farmers, are dependent on public research to better their harvest, says Anchalee Ouraikul, an official from the Thai agriculture ministry.

Thailand’s reputed long-grain fragrant jasmine rice was produced out of such collaborative effort, she adds. “The government-funded public research efforts are geared to developing new seed varieties for farmers.”

The current emphasis on public agriculture research comes at a time when the FAO is worried at the decline in public investment in agriculture research across the Asia-Pacific region.

There is a “growing reliance on the private sector for new technology,” the U.N. food agency declared during a regional meeting in Kathmandu, Nepal in mid-May.

“This does not cater to the needs of small and marginal farmers,” the FAO told agriculture ministers assembled at that regional meeting. “Studies have shown that declines in capital investment in agriculture are accompanied by decreased food supply and increased levels of undernourishment.”

“Several developing countries in the region have not given prominence to food security concerns in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, which form the basis for obtaining concessional international aid,” it added.

This picture is reflected in investment percentages across the region. Developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region allocate only 0.3 percent of their agriculture gross domestic production (GDP) on public research, states the FAO.

By contrast, developed countries across Europe, the United States and Japan set aside two percent of their agriculture GDP for research.

“The investment in developing countries is very low,” says Singh.

“It is a matter of great concern that aid to agriculture is collapsing,” states an FAO study released this month, entitled ‘Science and Technology for Sustainable Food Security, Nutritional Adequecy, and Poverty Alleviation in the Asia-Pacific Region’.

“Real disbursement of net aid to agriculture in the late 1990s was one-third the level in the late 1980s, which was itself down from the late 1970s,” the report reveals.

A recent study of rural Asia by the Asian Development Bank (AsDB) reiterated that agriculture growth is a prerequisite for economic development in general and rural development in particular, and that it must be pro-poor for improving quality of life in rural areas, it adds.

However, it notes, that direct lending and technical assistance to agriculture by the AsDB has sharply declined, from 1.24 billion U.S. dollars in 1990 to only 433 million dollars in 1999.

Champions of rural communities attribute other reasons for signs of decrease in funds in Thailand. “The 1997 economic crisis was a factor, and we noticed drops in the research budget for agriculture,” says Witoon Lianchamron of BioThai, a non-govenrmental Thai network lobbying for biodiversity and community rights.

“The Thai government needs more support from international agencies to conduct public research for the country’s rice farmers,” he explains.

Thailand is the world’s leading rice exporter, having shipped some 6.5 million tonnes of rice last year. The country, and five other Asian rice producers — China, India, Vietnam, Pakistan and Burma — account for 70 percent of the world’s trade, an estimated 16.5 millione tonnes of grain out of the global total of 23.2 million tonnes.

What is more, over 90 percent of the world’s rice is consumed in Asia.

Yet, participants at the Food Summit in Rome from Jun 10-13 will learn that such numbers have failed to meet a pledge made at the 1996 World Food Summit.

The pledge: to reduce the number of the world’s hungry by half by 2015. This required Asia seeing 13 million people helped annually to be freed from being among the world’s hungry.

“Of the 777 million malnourished people in the developing world, 497 million live in the Asia-Pacific Region,” states the FAO study released in May on Sustainable Food Security.

“Projections indicate that with a continuation of current trends, the World Food Summit target is not likely to be achieved,” it adds. “The achievement gap can be attributed to the unsatisfactory state of development of science and technology, general indifference to investment in agriculture (including agriculture research and technology), and social and economic barriers.”

Governments need to acknowledge the significance of public agriculture research to meet the Food Summit’s targets, says Diderik de Vleeschauwer, FAO’s Asia-Pacific office spokesman.

“The efforts over the last five to six years in the region have not been enough,” he adds. “Investments for such research have to increase locally and internationally.”