An Economic Assessment of Banana Genetic Improvement and ...

IMPACT OF TECHNICAL INNOVATIONS IN AFRICAN AGRICULTURE 5
international system, but at the same time
they have not proved profitable to private
investors (Naylor et al. 2004).
Roles are evolving, however, and public–private
dichotomies are less useful in
analyzing institutional change. A variety of
institutional modes will be necessary to expand
the range of technologies and more
fully address issues related to their social,
economic, and environmental consequences.
These include private funding through producer
associations (for commercial, tradable
crops) and various forms of public–private
partnerships, alongside continued public
funding for essential public goods, such as
research on managing natural resources and
the environment, prebreeding, and conserving
germplasm. The need to work through
civil society and other institutions to enable
the successful integration of technological
innovations in African agriculture has
become increasingly evident (Haggblade
2004).
Despite these changes and other calls for
change, the paucity of public funds in Africa—and
its implications—cannot be understated.
Africa received only 8 percent of
public agricultural research expenditures in
1976 and 6 percent in 1995, with the lowest
overall rate of increase among all regions
for the two decades, and it is the only region
of the world where per capita research
spending, in terms of both total population
and agricultural workers, declined (Pardey
and Beintema 2001).
Role of Social Science
Research in Technology
Development
Social science research can help identify
ways to create an enabling environment for
improved crop cultivars and practices before
their release. There is a need to diagnose
impediments and constraints to adoption
of cultivars during the development of
the cultivar in order to contribute to the future
success of the cultivar in farmers’
fields. Some challenges associated with crop
biotechnologies are the same as those faced
with conventional genetic technologies. 1
This commonality is especially true with
respect to the decisions of the farmers, who
are the potential clients for the research
product.
For example, effective, demand-driven
provision of planting material is a critical
ingredient to any successful seed innovation.
Poorly developed markets for planting
material, weak institutions for diffusing it,
or the extreme poverty and cash-flow problems
experienced by many smallholder
farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa have often
thwarted farmers’ ability to benefit from
improved cultivars, even when these cultivars
perform well in their fields (Tripp
2003). The agricultural R&D institutions
that constitute the commercial seed system
in high-income countries deliver final products
to dispersed clients, who demand them
on a regular basis. Compared with these
well-served farmers, those in marginal
environments of poorer countries in Sub-
Saharan Africa often rely on their own
saved seed or village connections, because
seed supplied through more formal market
channels is unreliable. Planting-material
systems for clonally propagated crops, such
as banana, are characterized by a far greater
degree of farmer-to-farmer exchange, and
some public investment is likely to be required
to support the dissemination of improved
bananas, whether or not product
marketing channels are well developed (de
Vries and Toenniessen 2001).
Another challenge common to any new
technology is that farmers must perceive its
benefits in their fields, not just on the ex-
1
Here, “conventional genetic technologies” refers to any type of hybrid (for example, varietal, top-cross,
three-way, and single- or double-cross), improved open-pollinated cultivars (such as a synthetic or composite)
or pure line selection developed in a crossing or selection program, in contrast to those developed through gene
insertion.