CAPSA Director outlines technology transfer issues in strengthening sustainable agricultural systems

The opening presentation by Dr. Katinka Weinberger, Director of CAPSA set the context for the substantive discussion to take place during the 10-11 February SATNET Policy Dialogue on the Role of Technology Transfer in Agriculture for Sustainable Development Outcomes. It focused on the challenges and opportunities for sustainable agriculture as well as the role of science, technology and innovation in promoting sustainable agricultural production.

Dr. Weinberger stressed the urgent need to transform global agricultural systems to meet the food needs of a growing world population and help address persistently high levels of poverty, particularly in rural areas as well as inequality. Furthermore, climate change and resource degradation call for making agricultural systems sustainable.

The CAPSA Director said that the ongoing global deliberations on the post-2015 development agenda offered an opportunity for seeking a transformative approach to sustainable development, integrating the economic, environmental and social dimensions. 

  

Dr. Weinberger noted that technology alone is not sufficient to make agriculture sustainable. New agricultural technologies are also not inherently more sustainable, nor is there a ‘one-size-fits-all’ model. Technologies must be adaptable to local circumstances and have flexible criteria for determining sustainability thresholds. As this is an emerging field, there are still data and metric issues that need to be addressed to assess the impact of agricultural technology transfer. Working through the SATNET Asia project, CAPSA has developed a composite sustainability indicator of agricultural technologies to address these gaps.

Given the wide range of stakeholders, research and development must address the effectiveness of different innovation strategies for technology transfer and ways to ensure technology adoption by the greatest possible number of farmers. Asia-Pacific stakeholders need to promote technology transfer and remove bottlenecks to the sharing of information. Effective coordination among stakeholders and better monitoring and documentation of the impact of technology transfer are also needed.

The Policy Dialogue was expected to showcase agricultural technology innovation and transfer by various stakeholders in the Asia-Pacific region and assess its impact and shortcomings, to better address food insecurity, poverty and environmental degradation, Dr. Weinberger noted. Another aim of the Policy Dialogue was to review national and regional policy options to support agricultural technology transfer for sustainable development and prepare a regional framework for this purpose. 

Q&A

During the ensuing Question and Answer session, it was pointed out that researchers can have very different perspectives on technology transfer and technologies may not be fully transferred to farmers. Limited communication between researchers and extension workers was acknowledged as an issue of frequent concern. However, it was observed, there are also many opportunities to enhance stakeholder engagement in the innovation process. Research must be cognizant of the needs of farmers who should be regarded not merely as final beneficiaries of technologies but also as active clients, providing research guidance and feedback.

In response to a question on the impact of policies on technology transfer and innovation, it was noted that policies affect innovation systems by influencing the quality of research and extension as well as investment in research and development. Policies to create an enabling environment are also required as are investments in infrastructure and incentives for business innovations. 

Reporter: Maame Agyeben, Trade and Investment Division (TID), UNESCAP