CHAPTER 7 - ICRISAT IN THE FUTURE

7.1 ICRISAT Today

For more than 30 years, ICRISAT has continuously served the people of the SAT through delivery of improved cultivars of its five mandate crops derived from yield-enhancing germplasm improvement complemented by NRM research. Since 1997, ICRISAT's research programme and structure have undergone several transformations with ensuing changes in programme focus and balance between Africa and Asia. These changes were due in part to the CGIAR-wide structural reform and the SAT future scenarios. In 2002, the programmatic structure was changed into a thematic organization and management structure. Independent of these changes, there was a continued decline of unrestricted funds, which severely affected the resource allocations of the different research programmes, particularly in Africa. Despite the difficulties and uncertainties encountered during the period of this review, ICRISAT's scientists and staff have remained committed and have shown that it is possible to conduct quality research and find innovative means to deliver ICRISAT products to their partners for eventual use by farmers and the larger community.

After a thorough review of ICRISAT's research portfolio, the Panel concludes that ICRISAT has continued its excellence in science with very good programmes in genetic resources, crop improvement, and biotechnology. It has maintained its world-class core competency in genetic resources and enhancement of SAT crops by exploiting the tools of biotechnology and IT to produce varieties, new tools, methodologies and other international public goods. While ICRISAT's publication output suggests that its scientists are reasonably productive and an adequate proportion of their work has been deemed of acceptable standard by the global scientific community, the contributions from some global research themes have been less than optimal. ICRISAT is conscious of this and is examining fresh approaches to remedy the problem. Evidence in support of these conclusions comes from the evaluation of the quality of ICRISAT's research, outputs and staff; meetings with scientists and staff; site visits; discussions with NARS representatives from India and ICRISAT's host country representatives in SAT Africa; and other partners from the international public institutions, the private sector and farm communities.

ICRISAT and its many partners have made significant achievements that are already having discernible impacts, some even at the farm level. Notable of these are: (1) two path-breaking research programmes on pigeonpea and chickpea that led to the commercialization of these subsistence crops and merited for ICRISAT, the King Baudouin Award of the CGIAR on two occasions; (2) high-yielding and pest resistant intermediate products and varieties of its five mandate crops released to a wider range of partners and regions; (3) core collections of well-characterized germplasm of the five mandate crops; (4) new biotechnology tools, methods and products including genome databases, transgenic lines and diagnostic kits for aflatoxin detection; (5) development of IPM for pod borer control in pigeonpea and chickpea; (6) documentation of the impacts of ICRISAT's technology and priority setting; (7) re-designing of emergency seed distribution systems and revised seed approaches to seed marketing in southern Africa; and (8) an ICT-based information platform for Institute-wide knowledge sharing and management and distance learning initiatives.

The Panel notes that ICRISAT places a high degree of importance on partnership building activities. ICRISAT's research is conducted in collaboration with a large number and diverse array of partners that include ARIs, CGIAR Centres, NARS, NGOs, the private sector, rural communities, etc. It has established several mechanisms for partnerships including networks, which have been used effectively to facilitate technology transfer and strengthen the research capacity of the NARS to produce NPGs from IPGs generated by ICRISAT. Overall, ICRISAT's partners have expressed satisfaction in the extent and quality of these partnerships. The Panel commends ICRISAT for its genuine efforts to develop appropriate partnerships to carry out its research goals and objectives.

The Panel notes a number of areas both in programme research and management that need to be addressed. The need to: (1) complete the evolution and operational integration of the commodity programmes at ICRISAT, Patancheru into a global strategic germplasm enhancement research programme; (2) address pressing issues on Intellectual Property, biosafety and public acceptance for transgenics; 3) increase capacity and resources in Africa to maximize the comparative advantage of strategic NRM research; (4) implement fully the CCER recommendations for SEPP at ICRISAT; (5) rationalize the role, scope and objectives of ICRISAT in the VUSAT initiative; (6) set and document research agenda and priorities through a transparent and highly participatory process; and (7) provide stronger day-to-day management and leadership of research programmes. The Panel believes that the current programme structure (Global Themes, Global and Regional Impact Targets) is a legitimate system for a complex institution like ICRISAT, but it needs to be more clearly delineated.

The Panel concludes that ICRISAT, more than ever, deserves the continuing and enhanced support by the donor community as it charts new grounds in the future.

7.2 ICRISAT in the Future

7.2.1 Challenges and Opportunities

ICRISAT today is faced with a number of challenges and opportunities for its work in the Semi-Arid Tropics. These have been analysed by ICRISAT in Future challenges and opportunities for Agriculture R&D in the Semi-Arid Tropics and ICRISAT's Vision and Strategy to 2010.

The Human and Natural Resources Environment

Population growth rates are declining in the developing world, but even with growing urbanization, the challenges of poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition will continue to be greatest in the rural SAT. Agricultural productivity must be increased in order to transform the lives of millions of the poorest people who live in the SAT.

There are changes in agricultural productivity and production patterns. In the rural SAT, staple cereals are consumed locally and are a major source of energy. In South Asia, the level of production of sorghum and pearl millet has been maintained and increases in productivity have released land for diversification into higher value crops. In West Africa, however, yields have stagnated because genetic yield gains are substantially constrained by natural resource limitations.

Demand for animal products (meat, milk and eggs) in developing countries is growing rapidly which has led to a growing demand for sorghum and pearl millet as dual-purpose varieties (crop residues and feed grain). In addition, industrial uses for coarse grains (e.g., starch and alcohol) and opportunities for processing are growing rapidly. Sorghum and millet can be further used by the industrial and animal feed sectors in the SAT if quality of the products is improved.

Today, more than ever, the world faces even greater challenges in managing the natural resource base and achieving food security. The SAT is a harsh, risk-prone, fragile environment. Drought is a constant threat. Water scarcity is a growing problem. Soils are poor and land degradation is increasing. Risks are pervasive and greater than in any other food production environment.

The poor in the SAT face variable and unpredictable risks. Their ability to invest in technologies is both constrained and dynamic. The devastating effects of HIV/AIDS on household income and food security and the feminization of agriculture, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, demand innovative solutions.

Growing commercialization in the SAT is leading to increased market opportunities and trade in SAT crops for poor smallholder farmers. Increased utilization of coarse grains in the SAT is inextricably linked with the fortunes of the market, the role of the private sector and technical and policy factors that determine the behaviour of these institutions.

The Research Environment

The environment in which ICRISAT operates has changed dramatically over the past 20 years. Publicly funded agricultural research has declined by over 50 percent during the past 15 years. An increasing share of agricultural research and ownership of new technologies has moved to the private sector. Environmental considerations are increasingly integrated into international development policy.

The total resources available to ICRISAT over the last five years have declined dramatically from US$30 M in 1996 to US$21 M in 2002. The proportion from unrestricted sources has also declined significantly from about 62% in 1999 to 40% in 2002. The proportion is expected to decrease further to under 30% in the 2003 - 2005 period. Increased dependence on restricted funds forces research managers and scientists to think more about donor priorities and development opportunities, and partner more closely with other stakeholders to solve mutual problems.

The CGIAR's Vision and Strategy 2010 articulates the new vision: a food secure world for all. The goal is to reduce poverty, hunger and malnutrition. Its strategy is embodied in seven core planks, which together guide the ICRISAT's new Vision and Strategy to 2010.

With the advent of biotechnology, various legal, financial and political constraints are evolving that constrain the exchange, delivery and use of germplasm and cultivars which has been a major activity of ICRISAT. Similar constraints arise as Centres form partnerships with commercial seed companies.

Opportunities

As indicated earlier, the Panel believes that ICRISAT today has clear comparative advantage in research in a number of areas: 1) Developing, maintaining, and enhancing the use of germplasm collections of its mandate crop species. 2) Breeding enhanced germplasm and, in the short term improved varieties in some cases, and developing improved breeding methods for its mandate crop species. 3) Developing improved rainfed cropping, and integrated cropping and livestock systems for the SAT in sub-Saharan Africa that include its mandate crop species and consideration of larger-scale aspects of NRM, such as enhanced watershed and agro-ecosystem management. 4) Analysis of institutions, policy, commercialization of seed systems and the marketing of ICRISAT mandate crops. 5) Generating data and analysis of the evolution of rural communities in the SAT. These provide a unique opportunity that the Centre has an obligation to the CGIAR and the rural people of the SAT to exploit.

The ongoing biotechnology revolution provides new opportunities for making plant breeding more effective and more efficient. The strengthening of NARS will provide better and more opportunities for ICRISAT to form effective partnerships with them in pursuing biotechnological solutions to problems. Strengthening of the commercial seed industries also will provide new and different opportunities concerning partnerships with ICRISAT in strategic plant breeding. These opportunities already have been occurring in India and to a lesser extent in sub-Saharan Africa.

The ongoing information technology revolution provides new opportunities for extending information and capacity building. It also complements the biotechnology revolution, such as by enhancing ability to do genomics. The information technology revolution can substantially enhance opportunities for research in many other areas pursued by ICRISAT, such as simulation modeling.

7.2.2 Focus and Operational Mandate

ICRISAT should focus on exploiting its comparative advantages within the confines of its external and internal environment.

One of the most promising areas for ICRISAT to produce IPGs and continue its outstanding record of providing germplasm of the future is through the full deployment of its biotechnology competence. Though young in its establishment, the Centre has shown that it can quickly claim a front seat in this competitive arena. The mandate crops of the SAT are of limited interest to international players and are given little attention by the commercial biotech companies. Yet, the ability to react to threats from pests or diseases with agility and use these technologies to quickly transfer resistance into adapted backgrounds is a true safety valve for the SAT farmers. Moreover, major challenges to ICRISAT remain in unlocking of the genetic resources for the enhancement of their breeding materials in order to deal with abiotic stress such as drought, nutrient stress, or to ameliorate nutritive value through fortification. Here also, the biotechnology competence of ICRISAT can generate IPGs that can subsequently be brought into the proper background.

The development of a centre of excellence for plant genetic resources and enhancement (PGRE) for mandate crops in the SAT, in close partnership with the national system in India and fully utilizing the unique capabilities of the IT and HiTech communities in Hyderabad would be a facility of enormous value to all institutes that try to tackle these challenges. There may be real economies of scale if this effort was combined with those of the other Centre in the system that deals with such issues in dry areas e.g., ICARDA.

In contrast to the many NARS in Asia, the capability of a large number of countries in the African SAT to develop strategies and technologies in order to utilize their natural resource base without destroying it is severely stretched. The natural resources in the SAT are not only threatened by global climate change but also by the effects of land use conversion in the more humid parts of Africa. The challenge is to study these complex issues that aim at efficiency of land, soil, water and agro-biodiversity use at a landscape level. Such studies fall squarely within the mandate of an IARC. The aim would be to mitigate the effects of environmental degradation (loss of biodiversity, degradation of lands) by improving the stewardship of land by farmers. It would logically be done in a programme that combines the competencies of the resource inventory/processes scientists with those that will tailor the farming/cropping systems, the principal tool of the farmer, to the land. Systems studies cannot be restricted to the traditional cropping systems in which ICRISAT has gained substantial experience. The principles of integrating non-mandate crops, the development of integrated crop-livestock, agro-forestry and small-scale irrigation systems should also be studied. This should be done in partnership with other CGIAR Centres without relinquishing the responsibility of serving the SAT farmer.

7.2.3 Transforming ICRISAT - A Forward Looking Strategy

ICRISAT must pragmatically respond to the changes in its external and internal environment if it is to fully live up to the aspirations of its founding fathers and stakeholders. It must strive to remain a world class international research centre under more challenging conditions than it has ever faced in its 30 years of existence. As detailed in earlier sections of this report, and in the reports of previous EPMRs, the Centre has made significant and praiseworthy contributions to knowledge about problems of agricultural development in the SAT. This has been particularly the case for the Asian SAT. ICRISAT should be justifiably proud that it has played such an important role in the progress Asia has made over the past two decades.

The Panel takes note of the rapidly changing research environment in Asia. It is also conscious of the fact that hundreds of millions of the world's poor are still living in the Asian SAT. However, as pointed out earlier, this is now a region of major economic and technological advances, with the major SAT country India, having the World's second largest agricultural research community. The Panel believes that a traditional IARC, such as ICRISAT, can only make limited additional contributions to the generation of knowledge in the Asian SAT. National governments or regional bodies are able and should be encouraged to take over this role. The Panel therefore sees a continuing role for ICRISAT in the Asian SAT only in strategic plant genetic resources and enhancement (PGRE) for the mandate crops. Because of its excellent facilities at Patancheru, the experience of its staff, and the location in Hyderabad, the fastest growing Cyber City in the World, the Centre still has a comparative advantage in this area of research. It is important that any such effort should be embedded in strong partnerships with NARS, the private sector, and other stakeholders in order to exploit the economies of scale of a single, comprehensive strategic PGRE programme located in Patancheru.

At the same time it is very clear that it is in the African SAT that the Centre still has wide scope for generating IPGs, and maintains clear comparative advantage in many areas of research. ICRISAT must find a way of accomplishing the same successes in Africa as it has achieved in Asia. For that to happen it needs to better define its longer-term role in SSA and must build on the fact that SSA is the region where it can have major impacts on development through the delivery of IPGs during the next decade.

ICRISAT today does not have the resources and critical mass of staff to mount comprehensive, cost effective programmes in all the regions of the SAT. In fact, with the recent retrenchments in SSA, the core commitment of the Institute to Africa is not adequate. In the struggle for dwindling financial resources the Africa presence is losing out. Business as usual - keeping full operational mandates in Africa and Asia - is therefore not realistic. In the current financial environment the cost of maintaining the Centre's entire Patancheru infrastructure will be an increasing burden. The Panel considers the possibility of drastically increased funding that would enable ICRISAT to operate a world class PGRE programme, at the same time as a full fledged NRM and socioeconomics research programme in the Asian SAT, in addition to comprehensive programmes in the African SAT, as unrealistic.

The Panel considers the efforts so far to transfer the NRM programme of ICRISAT to Africa as recommended by the 4^th EPMR as unfinished business (see section 1.4). We also believe that even a significant part of the conventional plant breeding capability should be re-deployed to Africa. However, since a world class PGRE programme in Hyderabad would require more staff than currently exist in ICRISAT, the transfer of conventional breeders to Africa would necessitate replacement by highly competent regionally or nationally recruited or seconded Asian scientists.

The Panel also considered the option of splitting the Centre into two autonomous Centres with regional mandates. In such a case it is likely that the conventional ODA donor community would strengthen the African Centre. The Asian PGRE Centre would be more likely to become a national programme with some support from the private sector. However, as convincingly argued by the 4^th EPMR, this is an undesirable option as it might weaken the African Centre in that it would no longer have the strategic backstopping of the germplasm collection, facilities and capabilities that might be crucial to generate breakthroughs.

In the Panel's view, the most desirable option is a win-win situation in which the African programmes of ICRISAT would be significantly strengthened while at the same time as a strategic PGRE research with a global perspective, serving ICRISAT in Africa and the NARS in Asia is maintained.

The Panel recommends that ICRISAT should rapidly restructure its programmes and transfer its Headquarters, and all programmes except its strategic plant genetic resources and enhancement programme, to sub-Saharan Africa.

This could be accomplished as follows:

1) Move the ICRISAT HQ to SSA and build an Integrated Genetic and Natural Resource Management programme that has critical mass by re-deploying human and financial resources to SSA. There is a major advantage in having the ICRISAT headquarters in the area in which it has its future primary role.

2) Maintain a core staff at ICRISAT, Patancheru for strategic plant genetic resources and enhancement, using biotechnology, wide crossing, conventional hybridization and selection to develop enhanced germplasm and improved breeding methods for the mandate crop species. This core should have the critical mass needed to generate IPGs^[5] and would be strategically and formally linked to the NARS and regional organizations. Partnerships with ARIs, private companies etc would be exploited to expand funding. The ICRISAT Gene bank would remain in Patancheru. The biotechnology effort would be maintained in Nairobi, Kenya to link the activities of the PGRE programme in ICRISAT with NARS plant breeding programmes in Africa.

3) Reduce the commitment in physical facility maintenance at Patancheru while maintaining control only over the parts needed for the activities of the PGRE programme and the Gene Bank. A gradual exit strategy will have to be developed that is based on the needs of the ICRISAT programme remaining in Patancheru. The Panel anticipates that substantial savings could be made in maintenance cost by shedding some of the Patancheru infrastructure. These could be used in acquiring and/or maintaining suitable infrastructure in SSA.