26 Agricultural Research and Procluciiviiy 



In Latin America a number of countries had developed quite 

 modern agricultural sectors prior to World War II, while their eco- 

 nomic performance in the past twenty years has been only par- 

 tially successful. It is probably not merely coincidental that their 

 investment in agricultural research has been relatively low and 

 shows little increase over time. It also appears that in Africa and 

 Asia, only South Asian countries (chiefly India and Pakistan) have 

 been making some strides toward the development of research 

 systems characteristic of growing and modernizing agricultural 

 economies. Most countries of Africa, the Middle East, and South- 

 east Asia have not developed research systems that even ap- 

 proach the standards set by the systems of the developed coun- 

 tries.^ Much of the Middle East investment is located in Israel. 



The picture that emerges from the extension data is quite 

 different. In terms of dollars, the developing countries appear to 

 invest less than the developed countries, although they spend 

 much more on extension than on research. When the comparison 

 is based on numbers of extension workers per dollar of produc- 

 tion, however (table 2.2), the developing countries have relatively 

 high investment levels in extension — almost twice that of the 

 developed countries. The emphasis on extension in the develop- 

 ing countries may make sense, given the relative prices they ap- 

 parently pay for scientists and extension workers; but it may also 

 be based on the erroneous assumption that there exist easily 

 transferable superior technologies which simply have to be put in 

 practice in traditional agriculture to transform it into a modern 

 sector. This issue is discussed further in chapter 6, where the con- 

 tribution of extension to productivity in the Indian agriculture is 

 analyzed. 



International Research Centers 



In addition to the national research systems whose investment 

 programs have been surveyed in the preceding tables, several in- 

 ternational agricultural research centers have now been estab- 

 lished. Table 2.6 summarizes data for the six centers existing in 

 1972. Only two of the centers, the International Maize and Wheat 



3. As later chapters will show, the returns to research in developing coun- 

 tries—wherever it was properly conducted— were comparatively high. This 

 remphasizes the relative scarcity and underinvestment in research in these coun- 

 tries. 



