The NARS Dialogues:
Judith Francis raised a very important issue with a set of questions related to why a seemingly most appropriate construct in theory, the National Agricultural Research System, did not thrive and has become a failure in practice?
Her questions were:
Why solutions which were proposed e.g.
the formation of NARS to address problems of the time, have not worked or
delivered the anticipated results?
Is it that they were prescribed from above,
without the necessary / adequate consultation and involvement of actors or
sufficient time to have any measurable impact?
The “NARS’ concept was meant to bring the
various actors together to enhance knowledge and information sharing/flows,
minimize duplication etc in the interest of agricultural and rural development.
However, if the enhanced capacities and financial resources were not available
or provided /identified by the proponents of this joined up approach,
then any perceived failure is not necessarily to be placed solely at the doors
of the NARs?
For me is also another
related issue to learn from for the future, why the larger agricultural research
and development community still persists with this construct for Agricultural
Research for Development (AR4D) or now Agricultural Research and Innovation for
Development (ARID; sorry but no pun intended) for nearly 40 years when they did
not persist with other concepts such as AKIS?
I draw attention to:
ISNAR. 1987. Report of International Workshop on
Agricultural Research Management. 7-11 September 1987, The Hague. ISNAR
available at http://ebrary.ifpri.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15738coll11/id/100 (courtesy IFPRI)
which considered the issues as early as in 1987.
I will try and continue to add to this dialogue more so with your help and contributions. You may please contribute either as comment or as a blog/document sent to my e-mail address amaru_in(at)yahoo.com. I shall post it on this blog.
Ajit Maru
The NARS dialogues as on 30/4/2015
Ajit Maru’s (ajm) Comment on APAARI’s vision conceppt note (Available with Ajit Maru):
Dr. Gunasena’s
opinion that “NARS have become unimportant entities and research and
innovation lies in low profile” resonates with me. The NARS is a construct of
the 1980’s development paradigm and apparently now does not fit with current
needs as also potentials for organizing agricultural research and innovation.
There is no evidence that the NARS, as commonly defined and understood[1] exists after almost 30 years of the
emergence of this concept. As documented, there several systems for
organization of agricultural research at the national level. It may also be
noted that APAARI’s current membership, after 25 years, is largely of research
organizations, some Universities and International Research Organizations and
not of any “NARS”.
Farming in Asia
will remain based largely smallholders for the foreseeable future. It is well
recognized that this farming now needs new knowledge and technology urgently to
meet emerging challenges. The new knowledge and technology needed for
agriculture can originate from formal research conducted by research
organizations (including universities) in the public and private sectors as
also from mass innovation by the agricultural community which includes farmers,
processors, agriculture related service providers, market intermediaries, consumers
etc. The generation and dissemination of new knowledge and technology in most
Asian countries still remains to be properly coordinated and made coherent
among all actors in the agricultural community. Instead of aiming to develop a
formal, “structured” system, Asia would very benefit from developing and
strengthening agricultural/Agri-food systems innovation networks through social
media taking advantage of new Information and Communications Technologies.
The NARS
construct as the basis of APAARI’s current vision of “…effectively promoting
and facilitating novel partnerships among NARS…..” has had deeper implications
on APAARI’s actions and impact. In view of future developments in this area, I
suggest that APAARI does not focus on the NARS construct and use it as a basis
for APAARI’s future vision. APAARI may want to consider the strengthening of
agricultural/Agri-food systems innovation networks at national, sub-regional
and regional levels and their interaction with similar networks outside the region
and internationally.
(Howard Elliot
mentions in his PPT about networks reducing transaction costs between actors).
Judith Francis
(JF) raised some very interesting points:
I am pleased
that you started this debate although you were expressing your personal views.
It is also good that you are asking that we all reflect on the “NARS’, their
contribution as well as their continued relevance to national agricultural and
rural development; the linkages with regional bodies including research
networks such as APAARI and banks e.g. the Asian Development Bank and as such,
it can/should be broadened to include the role, linkages and relevance of
international research systems, development banks etc.
We should all be
asking and perhaps many are, why solutions which were proposed e.g. the
formation of NARS to address problems of the time, have not worked or delivered
the anticipated results. Is it that they were prescribed from above, without
the necessary / adequate consultation and involvement of actors or sufficient
time to have any measurable impact? The “NARS’ concept was meant to bring the
various actors together to enhance knowledge and information sharing/flows,
minimize duplication etc in the interest of agricultural and rural development.
However, if the enhanced capacities and financial resources were not
available or provided /identified by the proponents of this joined up
approach, then any perceived failure is not necessarily to be placed solely at
the doors of the NARs. Subsequently, national agricultural innovation systems
were proposed and again, the capacity issues and financial constraints
including the enabling policy and legislative agenda, become the problem.
Hence, it may
not only be APAARI, which has to consider the changing dynamics such as rural
migration, urbanization, privatization, competitiveness etc, in visioning and
piloting alternate approaches to transforming Agri-food systems that benefit
rural and urban populations as well as nation states (economies, trade,
environment etc) but also the regional and international communities who
support governments and other agencies in crafting new directions. Not only do
the NARS, APAARIs etc have to reform but also international systems. Are we
ready to take up such a challenge in doing the “dirty work” - peel away the
masks, avoid self-fulfilling conclusions, ensure that proper analyses of
contexts are done in consultations with relevant stakeholders etc etc to chart
a new course?
Is it time for
reflection at all levels and scales? If this where you or GFAR (although your
views were personal) can lead in provoking such a self assessment and deep
reflections?
AJM’s reply to JF:
You raise a very
important issue with a set of questions related to why a seemingly most
appropriate construct in theory, the National Agricultural Research System, did
not thrive and has become a failure in practice?
I would like to
bring to attention a paper that Howard Elliot presented in 1987 at an ISNAR
Workshop (Document available at: http://ebrary.ifpri.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15738coll11/id/100. See
attached document provided by courtesy of Ryan Miller and Luz Marina Alvares of
IFPRI; Most ISNAR documents are now possibly lost or inaccessible) on
“Diagnosing Constraints in Agricultural Technology Management Systems” which
indicate many of the issues that could have caused the NARS concept to fail and
which in hindsight we now know has happened in Asia.
To me the more
pertinent question from which to learn is why the larger agricultural research
and development community still persists with this construct for Agricultural
Research for Development (AR4D) or now Agricultural Research and Innovation for
Development (ARID; sorry but no pun intended) for nearly 40 years when they did
not persist with other concepts such as AKIS? If we understand these issues
appropriately, it may contribute significantly to the design of approaches to
improve agriculture through new information, knowledge , skills and technology.
AJM to Howard Elliott (HE):
The NARS as a construct for research and innovation for
agricultural development debate has (been) reopened
Before us all being relegated to the dustbin of history,
could you please enlighten me to the history of the origin of NARS as as
concept and as a term. The last document I could trace was proceeding of a
Workshop in ISNAR where you discussed ATMS but the term NARS appears in the
document elsewhere also.
HE’s reply:
The term NARS was already in use at ISNAR when I joined in
1984. I believe it came out of the first 13 country reviews and was a way of
focusing attention on the agricultural research system. In fact, it often
referred to the lead institution in the country and people then began to
differentiate: NARI from the NARS as a wider research system. This was a period
when the extension system was all T&V. With the decline of T&V the
people started talking about the "wider NARS" (all research
components) and sometimes substitute NARES to include extension. However, the
tendency was to pick up on the Bank's creation of the AKIS (following Niels
Roling but introduced by a Dutch colleague in the bank and promoted by David
Nielson. I'll send you my note on the Evolution of Systems Thinking.
HE’s Notes
Available at:
HE’s further comments:
Every country has a “NARS” whether it is objectively
or subjectively defined. There are many documents that show how the
concept has evolved to become more inclusive system. Clearly, what once was the
“NARS” has become the “broader NARS”. In its lending in Africa, the Bank
went from two cycles of NARS strengthening to its African Agricultural
Productivity Programs. It told the participating countries that the third
round was for strengthening all the relevant institutions….not a third phase
support for research. The formula for strengthening the AKIS or AR4D took
different structural approaches.
Any system is defined by its objective. As I said in
my note, after that it is defined by its environment, components, means of
coordination, and resources. Therefore, APAARI only has to decide what system
it is now going to promote. It seems to me that the role could variously
be: 1) promoting integration of the national agriculture innovation system; 2)
promoting the integration of national agricultural innovation in the region
through sub-regional agricultural innovation system or 2) promoting
agricultural transformation in member countries. Each of this has a
different level of ambition, requires different resources, and may run into
competition with other agencies set up to do the same thing.
Have you looked through the World Bank’s Agricultural
Innovation Systems: A Sourcebook? (Available at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTARD/Resources/335807-1330620492317/9780821386842.pdf)
You will find lots of case studies. Second, there is real time
evolution of this question in Africa. FARA is faltering , the sub-regional
organizations are in a funding crunch due to the conclusion of the AAPPs, and
constructing the wider side at the continental level through CAADP is doing to
depend on African governments more and less from donors. Third, Latin
America has already gone through this: They formed PROCISUR,
PROCIANDINO and PROCITROPICOS. The evolution was roughly: 1) network of
networks, 2) formal program, 3) institutionalization, and 4) establishment of
institute-run programs. As they expanded their ambition, their research
programs competed with strong NARS and/or CG, and, in the agricultural
policy area found crushing competition from major think tanks, both autonomous
and in major universities.
AJM’s Comments
The Sourcebook
is an interesting reference document but does not include a critical assessment
of alternative scenarios especially in the context of ongoing globalization and
democratization of ideas and information aided by the Internet. It appears that
it could not shrug off the legacy of top down, inside out control system of the
post-colonial development approach.
In my opinion,
every country having a “NARS” is a normative statement and this is where the
debate, whether it exists or not in reality, lies.
This normative
construct is what in the World Bank or similar Institution opinion the most
appropriate to structure that channels agricultural research and innovation in
a country. There are many underlying assumptions for this construct. The
foremost is that scientific information, knowledge, skills and technology flows
are a closed system being generated and used only within a country.
Following this is the second assumption that each country has a sovereign
right to own and control these flows which it does through the “NARS”.
Both these assumptions in today’s world fail.
We see for
agricultural information, skills and technology huge amounts of trans-national
boundaries sharing and exchange. In an environment of such large transfers and
with international trade agreements, national governments seldom have powers to
control these flows. Some countries do try to use financial flows, IPR,
biosafety etc. rules to enforce sovereignty but these seldom work. It may be
also opined that the NARS construct is therefore a block to the process of
globalization and the sharing and exchange of information, knowledge, skills
and technology.
HE’s Comments
I think the interpretation of the need for “NARS” in
terms of national sovereignty is missing the key point, notably, the need to
build from a strong national base on which sub-regional and global
collaboration can take place. It is not nostalgia for the “NARS” of the
1980s but the basis for commitment of national governments to build open NARS
and open agricultural innovation systems. The brief resurgence of funding
for agriculture that followed the 2008 price crises in waning. The
Multi-Donor Trust Funds that fed CAADP and a series of infant funds at the
sub-regional level are not being replenished as hoped. The argument,
found in CAADP and the Science Agenda for Agriculture in Africa, is that
African must make real commitments to fund their institutions. The
declarations from Malabo and elsewhere cannot be pro forma. Commitment
has to build from the national level to the sub-regional level to the
continental level. You may agree or disagree with the reasons I give for
success or failure of regional collaboration/integration of research and higher
education (AIS sourcebook (p 304-305). They have more to do with finding
the formulas for cost-sharing, benefit-sharing and assurance of continuity of
services than about “national sovereignty”. Collapse of regional centers of
excellence using have more to do with national problems than desire for
collaboration. The farther you move from the national to sub-regional and
then to the continental the more difficult it is to maintain salience,
credibility and legitimacy. Since money does not flow top-down, the
important commitment is national funding to regional networks and support
through RECs. I don’t think anyone is fighting the liberation from
neo-colonialism; they are looking for the formulas that build
collaboration. For that, two ideas that ran through the Science Agenda
were: 1) research is too important to be outsourced; and 2) national commitment
(in terms of financial contributions) is the key that unlocks donor support.
AJM’s Comments
I agree that it
is necessary to have a strong national base, not necessarily of the
establishment, for collaboration to take place. This now comes through what I
call the democratization of learning and science (in a broad sense) that
supports mass innovation occurring through the use of ICTs, especially the
Internet. Mass innovation is key to
smallholders’ agricultural development as each of these farmers need customized
solutions to their problems. A system for agricultural innovation, not
necessarily national, can be built for broad based but specific needs such as
for agro-ecologies, crops, products, markets etc. with research organizations,
universities and schools, private sector, civil society, farmers, producers,
processors, consumers etc. all involved. These systems may be self-governing
just like the Internet (though the underlying infrastructure especially for
connectivity, content, integration, security may need government regulatory
mechanisms). The core issue is about the investment needed for the public goods that would support such a
system which I believe will emerge in due course of time. I am also not sure
how in today’s world, where both science and technology are increasingly
globalized, how we would consider something “outsourced”?
[1] NARS are defined, in a given country, as encompassing
all institutions public or private devoting full time or partially their
activities to agricultural research and committed to a national research
agenda. (FAO- See http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y4349e/y4349e05.htm)
