The Pakistan Agricultural Research System: Present Status and Future Agenda

Alarming food supply and demand deficits are projected to the year 2020 and beyond for Pakistan, based on its current low investment/low growth agricultural sector. Evidence suggests that agricultural productivity growth and increases in production may not keep pace with past growth rates. Part of the problem is an underfunded and poorly managed agricultural research system that can not hope to contribute significantly to increasing agricultural productivity now or in the future. The World Bank-assisted Agricultural Research II Project (ARP-II) was initiated to partially overcome some of the funding problems and provide institutional development in the areas of organisation, planning, and management of the research system at both the federal and provincial levels. A National Master Agricultural Research Plan (NMARP) was one of the principal goals of the ARP-II as part of improving research planning and management. The objective of this paper is to review the reasons why the Pakistan agricultural research system needs to be revitalised, review the status and problems of the present agricultural research system, and outline a future agenda for Pakistan’s agricultural research system based on the plan developed for the NMARP.

Private Sector Investment in Agricultural Research in Pakistan

Private sector investment in agricultural research in Pakistan, although growing in importance, is limited at present and with a few exceptions, has not had a significant impact on agricultural production and productivity. The publicly funded agricultural research system has made the major contribution to increases in production and productivity growth. However the impressive gains of the past cannot be achieved with the current underfunded public research system which makes it all the more important for private sector investment in agricultural research to achieve its full potential in areas of its comparative advantage. This paper identifies the magnitude of private sector agricultural research investment in Pakistan and discusses some of the current policy constraints that hamper its scope. Information was gathered through informal and formal surveys of multinational and national firms conducting agricultural research in Pakistan in the areas of inputs and product processing. Although private sector investment in agricultural research has more than doubled in the past ten years, uncertainty persists surrounding privatisation issues, unresolved intellectual property rights regulation, and the enforcement of seed certification and truth-in-labelling rules and regulations.

Orality in Medieval Irish Narrative: An Overview

Joseph Falaky Nagy teaches in the Folklore and Mythology Program at UCLA. His first book, The Wisdom of the Outlaw: The Boyhood Deeds of Finn in Gaelic Narrative Tradition, recently appeared. Professor Nagy's research interests include medieval Irish literature and Celtic mythology and its relationship to other Indo-European mythologies

Dante, Existential Hero

So much has been written about Dante\u27s Comedy in the seven centuries since its creation that it is hard to imagine that there is something new to add. But like all great art, it harbors a mystery. By what magic did Dante create this wonder? Where in the labyrinth of the human soul did he find the inspiration to synthesize classical Greek and Roman philosophy and literature with scholastic theology to create a work that has often been described as the equivalent of a medieval cathedral

Fighting words

In reference to the body language that both launches the oral performance and sets the stage for the spoken or sung word to work its effect upon the audience, Paul Zumthor said: "In its primary function, before the influences of writing, voice does not describe, it acts. It leaves to gestures the responsibility of designating the circumstances" (1990:40). A similar function, of contextualizing oral performance, can often be attributed to gesture that is depicted within the performance, specifically in the story told or the situation described./

Estimating the Yield Advantage of High-Yielding Wheat and Maize: The Use of Pakistani On-Farm Yield Constraints Data

This paper briefly reviews the index number approach to estimating the contribution made by crop development research and then discusses the use of on-farm yield constraint data to measure the rightward shift in the supply curve. Yield constraint data on wheat and maize from Pakistan are used as an illustration

Private Sector Investment in Agricultural Research in Pakistan

Private sector investment in agricultural research in Pakistan, although growing in importance, is limited at present and with a few exceptions, has not had a significant impact on agricultural production and productivity. The publicly funded agricultural research system has made the major contribution to increases in production and productivity growth. However the impressive gains of the past cannot be achieved with the current underfunded public research system which makes it all the more important for private sector investment in agricultural research to achieve its full potential in areas of its comparative advantage. This paper identifies the magnitude of private sector agricultural research investment in Pakistan and discusses some of the current policy constraints that hamper its scope. Information was gathered through informal and formal surveys of multinational and national firms conducting agricultural research in Pakistan in the areas of inputs and product processing. Although private sector investment in agricultural research has more than doubled in the past ten years, uncertainty persists surrounding privatisation issues, unresolved intellectual property rights regulation, and the enforcement of seed certification and truth-in-labelling rules and regulations

The Pakistan Agricultural Research System: Present Status and Future Agenda

Alarming food supply and demand deficits are projected to the year 2020 and beyond for Pakistan, based on its current low investment/low growth agricultural sector. Evidence suggests that agricultural productivity growth and increases in production may not keep pace with past growth rates. Part of the problem is an underfunded and poorly managed agricultural research system that can not hope to contribute significantly to increasing agricultural productivity now or in the future. The World Bank-assisted Agricultural Research II Project (ARP-II) was initiated to partially overcome some of the funding problems and provide institutional development in the areas of organisation, planning, and management of the research system at both the federal and provincial levels. A National Master Agricultural Research Plan (NMARP) was one of the principal goals of the ARP-II as part of improving research planning and management. The objective of this paper is to review the reasons why the Pakistan agricultural research system needs to be revitalised, review the status and problems of the present agricultural research system, and outline a future agenda for Pakistan’s agricultural research system based on the plan developed for the NMARP