世界経済・社会統計 = World development indicators

Investments aimed at improving agricultural adaptation to climate change inevitably favor some crops and regions over others. An analysis of climate risks for crops in 12 food-insecure regions was conducted to identify adaptation priorities, based on statistical crop models and climate projections for 2030 from 20 general circulation models. Results indicate South Asia and Southern Africa as two regions that, without sufficient adaptation measures, will likely suffer negative impacts on several crops that are important to large food-insecure human populations. We also find that uncertainties vary widely by crop, and therefore priorities will depend on the risk attitudes of investment institutions.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/319/5863/607.full.pdf

Prioritizing Climate Change Adaptation Needs for Food Security in 2030

To feed the several billion people living on this planet, the production of high-quality food must increase with reduced inputs, but this accomplishment will be particularly challenging in the face of global environmental change. Plant breeders need to focus on traits with the greatest potential to increase yield. Hence, new technologies must be developed to accelerate breeding through improving genotyping and phenotyping methods and by increasing the available genetic diversity in breeding germplasm. The most gain will come from delivering these technologies in developing countries, but the technologies will have to be economically accessible and readily disseminated. Crop improvement through breeding brings immense value relative to investment and offers an effective approach to improving food security.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/327/5967/818.full.pdf

Breeding Technologies to Increase Crop Production in a Changing World

A detailed retrospective of the Green Revolution, its achievement and limits in terms of agricultural productivity improvement, and its broader impact at social, environmental, and economic levels is provided. Lessons learned and the strategic insights are reviewed as the world is preparing a “redux” version of the Green Revolution with more integrative environmental and social impact combined with agricultural and economic development. Core policy directions for Green Revolution 2.0 that enhance the spread and sustainable adoption of productivity enhancing technologies are specified.

/pdf/green-revolution-impacts-limits-and-the-path-ahead-3lf2duds8q.pdf

Green Revolution: Impacts, limits, and the path ahead

Observations have shown that the hydrological cycle of the western United States changed significantly over the last half of the 20th century. We present a regional, multivariable climate change detection and attribution study, using a high-resolution hydrologic model forced by global climate models, focusing on the changes that have already affected this primarily arid region with a large and growing population. The results show that up to 60% of the climate-related trends of river flow, winter air temperature, and snow pack between 1950 and 1999 are human-induced. These results are robust to perturbation of study variates and methods. They portend, in conjunction with previous work, a coming crisis in water supply for the western United States.

/pdf/human-induced-changes-in-the-hydrology-of-the-western-united-12imwlibfq.pdf

Human-Induced Changes in the Hydrology of the Western United States

IFPRI has long argued that spending on agricultural research constitutes a sound investment in poverty reduction and agricultural and economic growth, through improvements in productivity. This argument is based partly on the reported evidence of high rates of return to agricultural research, typically believed to be in the range of 40–60 percent per year. Yet there continues to be controversy over whether these figures are to be believed, and over what they actually indicate. This study represents the first attempt to take a comprehensive look at all the available evidence on rates of return to investments in agricultural R&D since 1953, and the only attempt to do so in a formal statistical fashion. This report has compiled and documented the literature in ways that make it more accessible and more useful to other researchers and policymakers, as well as others interested in the evidence. The analysis reveals some systematic patterns and some sources of biases that make it easier to interpret the evidence and draw meaningful conclusions. (Excerpted from Summary by Per Pinstrup-Andersen)

http://impact.cgiar.org/sites/default/files/pdf/8.pdf

A meta-analysis of rates of return to agricultural R&D : ex pede Herculem?

Since 1978, China has adopted a series of economic reforms leading to rapid economic growth and poverty reduction. National Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at about 9 percent per annum from 1978 to 2002, while per capita income increased by 8 percent per annum. The post-reform period was also characterized by an unprecedented decline in poverty. However, income inequality has worsened between coastal and interior provinces as well as between rural and urban areas. A number of factors contributed to this widening disparity in regional development in China, including differences in natural resources endowments, and infrastructure and human capital development. When the policy reforms began in 1978, China was poorly endowed with transportation infrastructure. With rapid economic growth, the demand for road transport soared and consequently transportation shortages and congestion problems surfaced. Since 1985, the government has given high priority to road development, particularly development of high-quality roads such as highways connecting major industrial centers in coastal areas. In the 1990s, investment in infrastructure became a national priority and various policies were implemented to promote the rapid construction of highways. The development of expressways has been particularly remarkable, increasing from 147 kilometers in 1988 to 25,130 kilometers in 2002, equivalent to an average annual growth rate of 44%. In contrast, the length of low quality, mostly rural roads increased very little, by only 3% per year over the same period. The objective of this study is to assess the impact of public infrastructure on growth and poverty reduction in China, paying a particular attention to the contribution of roads. The beneficial impacts of roads on production and productivity, as well as on poverty alleviation, are well recognized in the literature but some important gaps remain. First, the impact of roads of different quality has received little attention. While the total length or density of roads is a useful indicator of the road infrastructure available in a country, it is important to account for quality differences because different types of roads

/pdf/road-development-economic-growth-and-poverty-reduction-in-1euidj4187.pdf

Road Development, Economic Growth, and Poverty Reduction in China:

Is small beautiful? Farm size, productivity, and poverty in Asian agriculture

Regional road development, rural and urban poverty: Evidence from China

Big shifts in where research and development in food and agriculture is carried out will shape future global food production, write Philip G. Pardey and colleagues.

/pdf/agricultural-r-d-is-on-the-move-4gbbjonslp.pdf

Connie Chan-Kang

Papers

A meta-analysis of rates of return to agricultural R&D : ex pede Herculem?

Road Development, Economic Growth, and Poverty Reduction in China:

Is small beautiful? Farm size, productivity, and poverty in Asian agriculture

Regional road development, rural and urban poverty: Evidence from China

Agricultural R&D is on the move.