Iiivestmeni in Agricultural Research and Extension: A Survey 21 



4. The implicit definition of what research is, is contained in 

 the standards applied by the abstracting journals for inclu- 

 sion. The journals chosen have as their stated purpose, in- 

 ternational coverage of all literature of scientific signifi- 

 cance. 



5. Since they are compiled basically from only three sources, 

 the publications data are less subject to reporting errors and 

 unstandardized definitions. 



An important advantage of the publications data is that they 

 enable comparisons over time. Thus biases toward certain com- 

 modities or countries, if they exist, do not affect the measurement 

 of relative changes over time. The data in table 2.3 are, therefore, 

 presented for three time periods. We note that the world share of 

 publications from the developing countries rose from 10.6 per- 

 cent in the 1948-54 period to 13.2 percent in the 1962-68 period. 

 If we exclude Eastern Europe and the USSR, the share of the 

 developing countries rose from 11.4 percent to 16.6 percent. The 

 extraordinary increase in publications by the Soviet Bloc coun- 

 tries is interesting, particularly in that it is correlated with rapid 

 increases in food production in Eastern Europe over the last two 

 decades (chapter 1, figure 1.1). 



Table 2.3 also shows the ratio of publications to the value of ag- 

 ricultural production. This ratio has remained roughly constant in 

 the developed regions except for Eastern Europe and USSR, 

 where it has risen markedly. A more detailed examination shows 

 that it has risen somewhat for crop-oriented research and fallen 

 for livestock-oriented research in the developed countries. The 

 developing countries, on the other hand, generally show an in- 

 crease in this share over time, except for Latin America, which 

 has a low and stationary ratio. 



Table 2.4 extends the calculations of table 2.2 to the publica- 

 tions data. Because of differences in publications per scientist 

 which favor the developed countries, much of the advantage to 

 the developing countries of employing lower salaried personnel is 

 lost. They end up paying almost as much for a research publica- 

 tion as the developed countries do. The African regions pay very 

 high prices for publications because of high salaries and low pro- 



