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Optimizing Public and Private Investments in Agricultural Innovations: Policy
implications
Johannes Roseboom, Innovation Policy Consultancy, The Netherlands
Email: [email protected]
Agricultural policymakers are usually too busy with day-to-day problems and lack the
time for real reflection on their role in agricultural innovation vis-à-vis the private sector
and on how to optimize public as well as private investments in agricultural innovation.
In this section we want to explore the policy implications of the ideas discussed in the
previous two sections.
Defining the public role
As we have argued in the second section, in a market economy, the responsibility for
(agricultural) innovation lies principally with the private sector. It is only when markets
fail that the government should step in – either by trying to resolve the market failure
(the preferred option) or by assuming direct public responsibility for certain agricultural
innovation activities (the last resort option). This market economy definition of the public
role in agricultural innovation is substantially more limited than the centrally-planned
economy definition, which places the responsibility for agricultural innovation squarely in
the hands of government.
In order to resolve or moderate the market failure, it is important to understand the
cause and depth of the market failure at stake. The private sector failure to invest
sufficiently in agricultural innovation (at least from a societal point of view) is caused
primarily by the fact that often a substantial part of the potential benefits of the private
innovation investment spills over to others, either horizontally (the spillover of benefits
to competitors) or vertically (the spillover of benefits to the consumer). These spillover
effects seriously undermine the expected private profitability of investment in
agricultural innovation in general and hence have a negative impact on the economically
optimal volume of investments. Moreover, there is the problem of duplication of effort.
The horizontal and vertical spillover losses are not the same for all agricultural
innovation activities. The horizontal spillover loss, for example, depends on the relative
excludability that one can impose. Such excludability tends to be quite weak for research
(although this can be improved by introducing IPR), but is stronger for innovation
activities such as knowledge acquisition, training, marketing and promotion.
Measures to reduce the horizontal spillover of agricultural innovation benefits include: (i)
the introduction and enforcement of IPR legislation (including plant breeders’ rights);
and (ii) the promotion of collective action by the economic actors in agricultural value
chains. In the latter instance, one can reduce horizontal spillover to nominally zero (at
least at the national level) by imposing an obligatory levy or cess to finance innovation
activities.
In the case of vertical spillover, a high share of the innovation benefits spilling over to
consumers (e.g., in the form of lower prices or better quality) reduces the profitability of
innovation for private actors in agriculture – both individually as well as collectively. This
is in particular so for food staple crops, which tend to have a price elasticity of demand
that is relatively inelastic (i.e., a change in price has a relatively strong effect on
demand). The consequence of this is that any increase in supply resulting from
innovation is met by a decline in price and so passing on a large part of the innovation
benefits to the consumer.
There is little that one can do about the price elasticity of demand itself. Only when
people get richer does the price elasticity of the demand for food products becomes
more elastic – rich people eat a more diverse diet and therefore have more substitution
options.
One important measure that governments can take in order to dampen the effect of
inelastic demand is trying to improve the link between the local and international
market. In this way, any deficit or surplus in the local supply can be moderated and
extreme fluctuations in price avoided. It basically puts a price floor and ceiling in the
market. Much of such integration into regional and international markets depends on the
transport infrastructure. Successful market integration reduces the vertical spillover
problem and thereby makes it more attractive for the private sector to invest in
agricultural innovation.
Vertical spillover of benefits can also be strong for innovations that target societal issues
such as the environment, animal welfare, etc. The private incentive to invest in these
topics is usually quite minimal, as most if not all benefits accrue to the society at large.
This is another case where public investment in agricultural innovation seems to be
warranted. Another possibility, however, is to announce the implementation of stricter
environmental or animal welfare standards and this led the private sector to innovate
and develop its own solutions.
Table 1 summarizes in a very stylized way, the possible combinations of public, publicprivate, and private implementation and funding of agricultural innovation in a market
economy that matches with the horizontal and vertical spillover of innovation benefits.
The table can help to differentiate government support to agricultural innovation and tie
it more strongly to the level of market failure in generating agricultural innovation. For
example, the traditional export crops (such as coffee, tea, cocoa, palm oil, sugar,
rubber, etc.) tend to fit in the bottom right quadrant. There is no (or minimal) spillover
of innovation benefits to local consumers and the problem of horizontal spillover of
innovation benefits is usually countered by strong collective action in the form of
commodity boards that have the right to collect a tax and organize their own innovation
activities.
Table 1: Differentiation of government support to agricultural innovation based on
expected market failure to invest in agricultural innovation
Spillover of
innovation
benefits to
consumers
or society at large
High
Low
Spillover of innovation benefits to other producers
High
Low
Executing agency: public
Executing agency: publicFunding: predominantly
private
public
Funding: shared
Executing agency: public
Executing agency: private
Funding: shared
Funding: predominantly
private
In the case of extension or advisory activities, it is important to differentiate between
approaches that bank on the horizontal spillover effect (such as the classic training and
visit approach, but also radio broadcasting, demonstration farms, etc.) and approaches
that aim to give tailor-made advice to individual farmers. In the latter instance, the
excludability is a lot stronger and hence it is a lot easier to charge farmers for it
individually.
Optimizing public support to agricultural innovation
In addition to the differentiated support strategies discussed above, it is important to
make sure that the available public resources are invested in the most promising
agricultural innovation opportunities. In an ideal market economy setting, the selection
of economic-growth-oriented agricultural innovation opportunities should be based on
expected profitability. The use of cost-benefit analysis in the selection of agricultural
innovation projects is quite common in the private sector (and certainly so in the bigger
companies), but is still quite rare in the public sector and it is rather unlikely that this
will change in the immediate future. Nevertheless, there are some important
developments in public management that are conducive to a more optimal (i.e.,
economically rational) allocation of resources: 1
1. The introduction of performance-based budgeting. Performance-based budgeting
aims to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public expenditure by linking
the funding of public sector organizations to the results they deliver, making
systematic use of performance information collected and validated through
monitoring and evaluation (M&E). This definitely comes at a cost of more
administration and paperwork. The benefit side, however, is that: (a)
performance-based budgeting forces government programmes to look more
critically at their own activities and performance as they have to formulate more
explicit and quantitative performance targets; and (b) information about expected
and actual results should help policymakers to make better informed (budget
allocation) decisions. These performance targets are definitely an improvement
over the old situation in which the control focused on the use of inputs, but hardly
on the outputs and outcomes of government programmes. Performance targets
are not perfect, but they are a step in the right direction. Moreover, performance
targets can be refined over time.2 However, several important conditions have to
be fulfilled in order to reap the benefits of performance-based budgeting,
including: (a) a strong political commitment to government transparency; (b)
sufficient administrative capacity at both the budget holder and the implementing
government programme to operate a performance-based budget; and (c) on time
release of approved budgets (largely dependent on macro-economic stability) and
greater managerial flexibility at government programme level.
2. The introduction of competitive funding schemes for agricultural innovation
activities. Although initially primarily used to allocate public funding to basic
research, the competitive funding instrument has become increasingly popular in
recent years as a way to allocate public funding to economic-growth-oriented
innovation activities. One reason for this popularity is that these schemes can
accommodate shared public-private financing of innovation activities more easily.
Another reason for their popularity is their ability to facilitate cross-institutional
collaboration. Some of the economic-growth-oriented competitive schemes
request a cost-benefit analysis and an ERR as part of the proposal, but this is not
common practice. Instead, the selection is usually based on a multi-criteria
analysis performed by a panel of experts. The end result of this selection may
come close to the economic optimum, assuming that: (a) the selection criteria
are sufficiently conducive to economic rationality3; and (b) there is sufficient
economic expertise in the selection panel to evaluate the economic dimension of
the project proposals.
See also Chema et al. (2003) for a more comprehensive discussion of the public
management reforms in agricultural research.
2
For example, a performance target for a plant breeding programme can be initially
defined as the number of new varieties released. At a later stage, one can refine this by
requesting information on the uptake of these varieties by farmers.
3
Common problems with the selection criteria in competitive funding schemes are: (a)
too many criteria, many of which tend overlap; and (b) not using minimum thresholds
for essential criteria.
1
3. The stronger focus on the outputs and outcomes of publicly financed agricultural
innovation activities also gets translated into a greater involvement of the
ultimate beneficiaries in identifying and prioritizing agricultural innovation
opportunities. This can range from the use of consultations (in various forms of
intensity) to appointing beneficiaries on the boards of the executing agencies. A
tool that is being used quite frequently to ensure that the agricultural innovation
services provided are reflecting farmers’ needs is to require from farmers a small
contribution (either in cash or in kind) to the project.
Characteristic for many of the recent public management reforms is that they change the
way public resources are being allocated across competing priorities. They put far more
emphasis on the outputs and outcomes generated by government-funded programmes
and projects than the more traditional budget allocation processes. As a consequence,
public agricultural research and extension agencies have to learn how to measure and
document the (expected) impact of their activities, define clear performance indicators,
keep track of these indicators through M&E and feed that information back into the
budget allocation process. Instituting this process is not always easy, because it may
trigger resistance. Performance-based budgeting and competitive funding are often
rejected as overly bureaucratic, only creating a lot of paperwork with little or no direct
benefits to show for it.4 Such resistance may also lead to poor implementation of the
process, which then turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy (a classic example is the failure
to set up a properly functioning M&E unit). There is still a lot of work to do to get these
public management reforms implemented properly.
In addition to the increased focus on results, recent public management reforms are also
trying to improve the relevance of those results by involving farmers, consumers and
other stakeholders in the identification and prioritization of innovation opportunities. The
idea is that funding requests gain in strength when they are based on such joint action.
In terms of mobilizing resources for agricultural innovation activities, it is important to
master the new rules of the game. Those agencies that fail to do so will lose out.
Moreover, at the aggregate level, one can still lobby for more resources to be invested in
agricultural innovation activities, but this should be complemented with a portfolio of
well-prepared agricultural innovation project and programme proposals that are
worthwhile funding.
It is also a classic case of incongruence between costs (more paperwork for research
and extension officers and administrators) and benefits (a more optimal allocation of
resources at the aggregate level).
4
References
Chema, S. Gilbert, E. and Roseboom, J. 2003. A Review of Key Issues and Recent
Experiences in Reforming Agricultural Research in Africa. ISNAR Research Report No. 24,
ISNAR, The Hague, Netherlands.
ftp://ftp.cgiar.org/isnar/publicat/PDF/rr-24.pdf