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IFPRI researches and Bangladesh realities

IFPRI's main attention is on Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The regions have long been laggards in the race to uplift growth and development. And within South Asia, Bangladesh is poised with the challenge of a fast reducing land frontier and rapidly increasing labour force. Since IFPRI is a policy institution, not a general development institution, Bangladesh can immensely benefit from the research outputs of the institution.

ABDUL BAYES
THE International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) came into existence in 1975. It got off to a start with the sole motto of research inputs to the developing countries in their search for food security. Appreciably, it has carried out researches on panoply of policy issues pertaining to food, nutrition and employment. IFPRI has been an innovator in the field as well as an adapter and promoter of the insights of other leading thinkers in food and development policy. Partly as a result of the cumulative research experience of the past 25 years or so, there have been a number of significant paradigm shifts in food policy. For example, first, focus has been shifted from farms and smallholders to poor consumers and food security. Second, earlier importance given to agricultural production has increasingly been shared by the broad spectrum of food system including distribution and processing services. And finally, the tone tilted from general statement of food policy to specific target setting. To say the least, reducing the number of malnourished people, notably at the 1996 World Food Summit and in the Millennium Development Goals, is a pointer to this change. To me, the implications of the
shift from general to specific is of immense interest. Qualititative statements of tall order lip services have been replaced by quantification of actual achievements, however meagre it might be. Arguably, this has imposed an accountability of the job assigned to policy makers and transparency in the treatment of issues.
Slow success: Despite faced with debilitating deterrents, the world has made remarkable progress in increasing food production and reducing food
insecurity over the decades. But, disconcertingly, the progress dipped in the 1990s and reaching a sustainable food security point remains an elusive goal, ipso facto. For example, the proportion of food-insecure people in the developing world fell steeply from 37 to 20 per cent during 1970s and 1980s while it declined marginally from 20 to 17 per cent in the 1990s. The reasons could be that in many countries production frontiers have been exhausted, yield rates have been falling and the old production and processing activities no more deliver the dividends like in the past. Added to this is perhaps the reality that developed countries, in different pretexts, deem to deter the flow of agricultural exports from the developing world. In any way, the message is that achieving the Millennium Development Goal of cutting the number of hungry people by half by 2015 will be
especially challenging. " One thing is clear: This goal will not be achieved through business as usual. Research is needed on the barriers to accelerating this sluggish progress on eliminating hunger in a food-rich world".
IFPRI and Bangladesh: Few words on the relationship between Bangladesh and IFPRI should be on board. Bangladesh has constantly been a recipient of IFPRI's research outputs. IFPRI recognised some of the renowned economists and institution
of Bangladesh -- Nurul Islam, Raisuddin Ahmed, Mahabub Hossain and an institution like BIDS. More often than not, their collaborative works resulted in enriching research capacity building and communications.It would not, perhaps, be too much to say that IFPRI researches helped change some of the perceptions of our policy makers and academics over the years. The pioneering works on food and input subsidy, infrastructure and poverty reduction, food rationing, food for education etc. had tremendous effects in terms of policy changes and concomitant positive outcomes. Various impact studies following the devastating flood of 1998 also helped an assessment of the resilience that the economy has been harping on. By and large, IFPRI-led research implications resulted in less government interventions, opening up of foodgrain trade,
abolition of rationing channels, emphasis on targeted programme etc.
Vying for views: Very recently, the Director General of IFPRI, Dr. Joachim von Braun and his colleague Dr. Ashok Gulati paid a visit to Bangladesh. Von Braun is a German born eminent international economist who is also the current President of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE). I recall reading some of his epic works relating to famine and commercialisation. The other guest, Mr. Gulati
is known for his empirical research on trade and food security and his involvement with South Asian network -another window of IFPRI's research, communication and capacity strengthening efforts. However, both of them came to Bangladesh to seek suggestions on the emerging research needs to meet the challenge relating to food security in the current millennium.
Research needs: In their brainstorming session at BIDS, the learned guests received a number of suggestions on the emerging research needs. My personal impression is that Bangladesh has almost exhausted research on a number of issues like agricultural growth rates and variations across ecosystems, determinants of growth, poverty and its correlates, HYV adoption and profitability, efficiency of small vs large farms etc. Allow me to call them first "generation research".
There is perhaps no denying the fact that the country has long traveled traversing tracks and admittedly achieved respectable progress in the realm of agricultural production and management, infrastructural development etc. Foodgrain production reached a respectable limit. Marketable surplus increased from 15 per cent in the late 1970s or 1980s to 50 per cent at the moment. Reforms in input and output markets especially of opening up food trade reaped home some
harvests hitherto unimagined. More importantly, the construction of the Bangabandhu Bridge opened up the opportunities for northern part to integrate with other parts where, reportedly, cropping pattern has been shifting more towards non-rice crops and price spread across regions has been reduced. In the light of these changes, the research requirements need to be revisited. And again allow me to call them "second generation of research". I submit below some of the "second generation" important issues.
Whether the increased marketed surplus is -- a la Amit Bhaduri -- distress driven or product of normal exchange;
® The impacts of Indian agricultural and trade policy on Bangladesh;
® The impact of trade liberalisation on farm economy;
® Climatic change and natural resource
management;
® The productivity of factors in the non-farm sector;
® The role of women in agricultural fields;
® Globalisation, retail industry and trade regime;
® An analysis of policy risks in the light of global food system functioning ;
® Linkages of agricultural growth and the changes upon labour, factor and credit markets;
® Political system, governance and food security, and
®The role of institutions in generating surplus and reducing poverty.
Concluding remarks: While glancing through the list, one should never be oblivious of the fact that the first generation of research still carries importance but not so much perhaps as it would have bagged a decade back. Some resources are obviously needed to promote them. My point is that the emerging research should primarily focus on the above mentioned issues.
IFPRI's main attention is on SubSaharan Africa and South Asia. The regions have long been laggards in the race to uplift growth and development. And within South Asia, Bangladesh is poised with the challenge of a fast reducing land frontier and rapidly increasing labour force. Since IFPRI is a policy institution, not a general development institution, Bangladesh can immensely benefit from the research outputs of the institution. We can only expect that IFPRI would continue its earnest endeavor to help us grasp the impacts of growing globalisation on agriculture, food and nutrition and suggest policy alternatives to the policy makers through participatory research works.
Abdul Bayes is Professor of Economics, Jahangirnagar University