Dr. Raghunath Ghodake, Director General, National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI), Papua New Guinea was one of the key speakers in the High-Level Policy Dialogue on Technology Transfer for Smallholder Farmers. He highlighted key constraints and opportunities in technology transfer and adaptation processes for smallholder farmers.
Key constraints include:
- The diseconomy of scale when farmers procure and sell their products
- Programmes focus on food productivity as outcome but farmers look for improved livelihoods
- Research tends to focus on certain issues, not the whole system approach
- Absence of policy and institutional arrangements to implement agricultural policies
- Participation of farmers
- Synergy and complementarity of various technologies
- Partnership and collaboration of all appropriate actors
- Access and use of new technology, such as bio-tech, by farmers
Dr. Ghodake concluded by highlighting key challenges that still remain, such as farmer participation in research and development; demand driven research; how to protect smallholder farmers and balance competing interests of multinational and national companies and how to provide innovation for small scale farmers.
Nice initiative, Mr. Director. We need more steps like this, technology and smart practices are the only ways we can compete with rest of the world.
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