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Abstract
A key to securing global food security, conserving
biodiversity and achieving climate change objectives
as well as other concerns of international
importance will be to sustain if not enhance productivity
gains in agriculture. However, there are
indications that productivity growth is slowing in
staple food and feed crops around the world, and
that the pace of investment in agricultural R&D —
a primary source of the innovations that spur
productivity — has slowed as well. The nature and
magnitude of these shifts are spelled out in this
paper. Reinvigorating agricultural research will be
pivotal to turning these productivity trends around.
The public sector has a key role to play, but the
private sector will also contribute. However, the
actions of the for-profit private sector are shaped
by commercial realities that will limit their role in
many, but by no means all, developing-country
markets for many years to come. Thus a complementary
public–private strategy will be the key to
success. The private-sector roles in agricultural
research are briefly described, along with the
underlying economic factors at play, as a basis for
informing the important policy and institutional
choices and changes that will be required if the
promise of increased agricultural productivity
gains is to be realised in the decades ahead. The
stakes are high, not least because decisions and
actions taken (or not taken) now will have
consequences for many years to come.