Senior Staff Writer, Masaru Yamada
The Japanese government’s official development assistance on foreign agricultural research institutes has decreased sharply in the last decade, it was learned. ODA for agricultural research topped 4 billion yen every year in the late 1990s, making Japan the second largest contributor in the world after the United States, but the amount dropped to one-tenth of the peak level in the recent years. Japan’s contribution in the field of agricultural research and development is declining, as emerging nations expand their funding.
At the Tokyo International Conference on African Development held in Yokohama earlier this month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe promised to expand assistance in such noticeable areas as building infrastructure and fostering manpower. On the other hand, funding on the inconspicuous field of research and development is continuously shrinking.
Japan’s ODA funds for agricultural research are distributed to research institutes in developing countries basically through the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a global partnership created under the World Bank to promote sustainable food security. CGIAR was established in 1971 by international organizations such as the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program, the governments of industrialized countries including Japan and private foundations. The group’s research projects are carried out by 15 member agricultural research institutes such as the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines.
The Japanese government offered more than 4 billion yen to CGIAR every year in the late 1990s, but the amount dropped 40% in 2002, and continues to decline. The funding temporarily rose in 2006, 2008 and 2012, but the rises are mainly due to supplementary budget spending for emergency assistance to African countries, and the initial budget allocated for CGIAR in fiscal 2012 was only 500 million. Emerging countries such as India, which joined CGIAR as funders, are increasing spending on CGIAR and are likely to overtake Japan in the near future, the Japanese government and World Bank officials said.
Unlike other forms of assistance such as food aid, investments on agricultural research and development do not have immediate effects. It takes a long time to develop a variety which fits the conditions of each region, improve cultivation techniques or bring up researchers. Keijiro Otsuka, professor of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, said that developing technology which benefits the agricultural sector and farmers is inevitable to reduce poverty in developing nations, stressing the importance of investment on research with a long-term perspective.
After Japan began cutting funding on CGIAR in the beginning of the 2000s, some research institutes were forced to scale down their research and dismiss researchers. Otsuka, who headed IRRI at the time, said the Japanese government’s reputation as a reliable funder was damaged. Jonathan Wadsworth, a World Bank official and executive secretary of the CGIAR fund council, said although he does not criticize the Japanese government for deciding to reduce funding amid prolonged economic depression, he hopes Japan will increase funding to the previous level when the economy recovers.
A Foreign Ministry official said that Japan’s funding on CGIAR declined as the government continued to reduce the overall ODA spending in recent years. This does not mean Japan is intentionally cutting budgets on agricultural research as a whole, the official said, adding that it offers funding through the World Bank to support research on developing seeds as part of its assistance to African countries, separate from the CGIAR framework.
Since reducing poverty and starvation are vital for the international community, the Japanese government should reconsider the importance of agricultural research.
(June 27, 2013)