Public Plant Breeding in an Era of Privatisation

This series is published by ODI, an independent non-profit policy research institute, with financial support from the Department for International Development (formerly the Overseas Development Administration). Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of either ODI or DFID. Privatisation is an increasingly prominent feature of the policy advice directed at agricultural research in developing countries. Structural adjustment to reduce the role of the state, and the trend toward liberalisation of markets and trade, make privatisation a logical component of public research reform. It is important to understand how increased private activity in agricultural research will affect the public sector. The term 'privatisation' is subject to interpretation. Public research has opportunities to relinquish some of its activities to the private sector. The public sector can also improve cost recovery and efficiency in its remaining research activities. Innovative public–private partnerships – another aspect of privatisation that is particularly important and often overlooked – are contingent on intellectual property protection and increased access to biotechnology tools and processes. The paper begins with a brief review of the rationale for shifting some public research responsibilities to the private sector. The next section looks at how public research itself can be made more efficient. The third section introduces the importance of strengthening the relations between public research and the private seed sector, followed by discussions on intellectual property protection and access to biotechnology. The paper concludes with a brief summary of the arguments. The opportunities for private agricultural research depend greatly on the characteristics of the technology. Private research will only be attracted to technology that allows research and development (R&D) firms to appropriate some of the benefits. Private research investment is also more likely where particular products or techniques can be utilised over a range of environments and where future demand for the technology will ensure increasing market size. Although private investment in the manufacture of agricultural chemicals, machinery and equipment can be expected to grow, investment in the research required to adapt those products to specific farming environments is likely to be less evident. Similarly, private investment in research to generate crop or resource management information (which can not be protected) is likely to be low, even when this information may be utilised in highly commercialised farming. On the other hand, there is increasing scope for private plant breeding, especially for crops and varieties that are widely grown. The availability of hybrid …