Poverty and agriculture in Asia: new challenges for agricultural colleges and universities in the 1990s

Abstract

Although there have been gains in wellbeing and in national food security in countries of Asia, concern with the poorest 20 to 50 per cent of the population often points to totally unacceptable deprivation. Partly in consequence, priorities in agriculture have shifted from how much is produced towards who produces and where production takes place. This directs attention to sustainable and secure livelihoods for resource-poor farmers. It also points to the relatively complex, diverse and risky agriculture outside the green revolution areas. The "transfer-of-technology" (TOT) paradigm which has served industrial and green revolution agriculture does not fit well with this third, CDR (complex, diverse, risky) agriculture. The complementary "farmer-first" (FF) paradigm implies farmer participation in research, and a quiet professional revolution, with reversals of location and role. Scientists and extensionists learn from, support and advise farmers, whose own analysis, choice and experiments are prominent. FF approaches hold promise of serving many millions of the poorest. The challenge to Agricultural Colleges and Universities is to take and maintain the lead in developing and disseminating FF approaches and methods. This raises hard questions of professional rewards, of scope for young professionals, and of syllabi and textbooks. For national agricultural systems it raises questions of management information systems to serve farmers! needs and demands, of decentralisation of resources and discretion, and of the roles and relationships of research and extension. Paradigm shifts are painful and resisted by normal professionals; but here the new paradigm is complementary, not alternative. Those Colleges and Universities, and those professionals, who take the lead in the 1990s may be seen in the 21st century as pioneers in the greatest enterprise of the human race, the elimination of poverty.