Preserving the options : food productivity and sustainability

17(c 5 Oct. eq Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research Preserving the Options: Food Productivity and Sustainability John Walsh ISSUES IN AGRICULTURE D l-aDJW 1 M11 M4 4 W 1W 1  p~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~V .' A: 0 . : | lPreserving the Options: Food Production and Sustainability | : stl John Walsh '''L '~ ' , , X Published by the Consultative Group on ISSUES IN AGRICULTURE, NO. 2 * lK _ InternationalAgriculturalResearch,CGIAR Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research Secretariat, 1818 H St., N.W., Washington, '~.J[f' D.C., 20433, United States. October 1991. | - ' I''' "' ' ' '' "  Foreword This booklet was prepared in antici ation of the 1992 UINCED Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It describes the efforts of nearly a thousand agricultural scientists working to sustain food production in developing countries. It was commissioned by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Re- search-CGIAR. Its author, John Walsh, is a former editor and reporter for Science magazine and a long-time observer of agri- cultural policy issues. Mr. Walsh points out that in the 1950s many experts predicted that developing countries would run out of food within two decades. Although famine did occur in some locations, large-scale starvation was averted by the introduction of high-yielding crop varieties developed at CGIAR centers. Today, the developing world produces three to four times as ------_____________________________________________ much food as it did in 1950 and the prospects of massive famine seem remote. The Consultative Group an International Agricultural Re- Food security, however, has come at high cost to the search (CGIAR) is an association of 41 public and private environment. To reverse this trend, CGIAR researchers are sector donors that supports a network of 16 international working at some 200 locations around the globe. Their efforts agricultural research centers located mainly In developing cover a range of projects, including biological control of insects, countitries. Over 1700 scientists of 60 nationalities work at pests and the conservation of biodiversity. These initiatives, or for the centers. and numerous others, are helping to ensure the long-term sustainability of agriculture, and the natural resource base on which farming depends. 'I'o meet future challenges, the CGIAR has recently undergone extensive restructuring. The objective hias been to increase the ability of researchers to help farmers adopt more sustainable and environmentally friendly farming practices. Indeed, today's CGIAR scientist is as concern,d with environ- ment and natural resources as the last generation of researchers was with increasing production. This fact is increasingly re- flected in our research and in the products that reach farmers fields. This booklet describes the patlh that CGIAR has taken to reach that juncture. In his essay, Mr. Walsh describes the issue of sustainability as seen by agricultural scientists working in the field. fie attempts to show that agriculturalists and environmen- talists share many common concerns, and he explicitly dem- onstrates the urgency of their working together to meet common goals. Hubert Zandstra Chair, CGIAR Sustainability Committee  Preserving the Options: Food Production and Sustainability by John Walsh In the early 1970s, widespread drought caused a cycle of bad harvests, brought famine to Sub-Saharan Africa, and raised the specter of world hunger. Satellite imagery of an encroaching Sahara became a graphic symbol of the destruction of natural resources. Against thiis background, the United Nations spon- sored its first global conference on the environment in 1972 in Stockholm and on food in 1974 in Rome. In the same year that the UN held its environment conference, afledglingorganization with an unwieldyname, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), established its first new research center in a developing country. The CGIAR's aim was to extend the benefits of the green revolution more widely by bringing modern agricultural science to bear on the problems of growing more food in developing countries. These were formative years for the environmental movement and for international agricultural research. But even though environmentalists and agricultural scientists had com- moii cause for concern, they seemed to be mutually wary and following different agendas. If the two perspectives differed then, in the next two decades they rapidly converged. The CGIAR owed its existence to the part played by agricultural research in the epic increases ,in wheat and rice production in Asia and Latin America. It was conceived as an interim organization. The founders set theirsights on helpingto increase food production and expected the CGIAR after a few years to pass the torch to agricultural scientists in developing countries. An organization in a hurry, the CGIAR-or CG as it is more familiarly known-was not attuned totakingthe longview on environmental matters. The CG's temporary mission, however, has proved to be open-ended. Along the way its centers have scored solid successes, but also suffered some humbling reverses and came in for their share of criticism. CGIAR scientists found that with other crops in other regions they faced problems far more complex and difficult than those encountered in dealing with wheat and rice. Prominent 3  among these were the long-term environmental issues that the UN conferonco had begun to address. tlho U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in an effort to reduce the scientific uncertainties. Population Pressures The aim of the EPA-IRRI experiment is to study how climate change might affect the growing of rice, In the poorest countries, where a majority of people still and also, by measurinF methane release from rice depenid on agricultture for aliving, trends of the last 20 years have fields, to gain some insight into the question of how inade circumstances more menacing. Above all, a predicted rice growing might affect climate change. doubling of world population in the next 40 years will put iaIn one controlled study, rice plants subjected to extreme pressures on developing countries where birthrates are elevated levels of UV-B willbecompared with plants generally highest and resources stretched most thinly. in field plots exposed at current I-B levels. EPA In the 1980s, new unknowns were injected into thej team leader David l'ingey says that the objective is to environmental equation. Some scientists predict significant establish an exposure-response function. "We want climate change in the near future with earth temperatures rising to know the result if exposure is increased. It will because of the buildup in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and help make it possible to extrapolate the consequences otherso-calledgreenhouiseg,fses. Otherdangersw( wereporeeivof specific changes in the future." Increases in UV-B ohrsocatllednigrclehuegarhSes.OtherdieOngers werepercOeive I leVelS are expected to affect plant growth: some from a thiinning of the earthi's p)rotective ozone layer after hioles in the layer were detected over the South Pole. The CG stance so predict that the changes will weigh against rice plants far has been to acknowledge that the potential effects of global in the contest with weeds, insects, and disease. warming are enormous, to avoid taking sides in the debate, and In the global warming segment of the project. rice to play at least a modest part in helping to resolve the un- 'iin the field will be compared witl rice pl ants grown certainties, a in special greenhouses where temperature and CO2 levels are controlled. Here too, the aim is to learn the magnitude of changes, in this case those that would come with rises in CO2 and temperature levels. Tl he Wild Card of Climate! Change Researchers will also Investigate methane emis- sion rates fromn rice fields and consider how the rates Alarnm about a growing greenhouse effect and the wouldbeaffectedbyclimatechange. Methaneinspires thinning of the ozone layer of the earth's atmosphere interest because it is a greenhouse gas and about 20 has made the possibility of rapid climate change a timesmoreeffectiveintrappingheatintheatmosphere wild card in the environmental deck. In more omi- than carbon dioxide. The concentrati'on of CO2 is nous forecasts, global warming and increased ultra- currentlymuchhigherintheatmosphere, butmethane violet-B (UV-B) radiation will have a drastic effect on concentration is growing faster. agricujlture, Certainly, there would be winners and Rice is a major contributor to the methane load. losers. Some regions, notably those in cooler climes Estimates put the share of rice rields and swamps at toward the poles, would be expected to benefit. 20 to 30 percent of the total, but there are many Developing countries in the tropics, on balance, uncertainties, says Tingey. Knowledge of hbw much would apparently suffer as temperatures rose and rice is grown globally, and where, remains inexact. rainfall patterns altered. And lackof information onhow manycrops ayear are With the prognosis still unclear, CGIAR strategists produced adds to the questions. are looking hard at the environmental eventualities Methane is produced by the decomposition of and one center, the International Rice Research In- straw and other organic material in the anaerobic stitute (IRRI) in the Philippines, is cooperating with conditions under which paddy rice is grown. Rice 4 5  i Sustainability Forever plants themselves serve to vent methane trapped in the soil. beodThe upshot is that farmers in developing countries must Intentions in the five-year study are to go beyond do more with less. Agriculture, therefore, faces a double clial- analysis and frame effective responses where the lenge-not simplyto increase food production, but to assurethat findings indicate potential trouble. For example, the resource base is not degraded. That task is signified in the H.U. N eue, coordinator of IRRI's methane research term sustainability. says, "Some believe that the new high-yielding rice The concept is hardly new. Sustainable catches of fish plants allow methane to escape from the soil niore or harvests of trees have long been familiar notions where easily than traditional varieties. If that's true, breed- fisheries and forestry are concerned. Ecologists in the 1960s ers miglht try to alter the basic architecture of the applied the term at the planetary level and elevated it into modern rice plant." something of a holistic grail. The EPA-IRRI project calls for computer simula-i Talk about sustainable production systems in agricul- tion of variouis climate-change scenarios. Frits W.T, ture gradually gained currency. A bench mark in the political Penning de Vries, former leader of the IRRI siinula- etymology of the word was established with its conspicuotus use tion team, noted that "Even a I degree increase in in "Our Co(mimi1on Futtire," the report of the World Commnission average temperature, if sustained over several sea- on the Einvironment and Development in 1987. sons, could allow farmers who now grow just two By that time, the CGIAR had installed sustainability as crops to start growing three." On the other hand, rice a formal goal. Sustainable agriculture was defined as the is notoriouslytemperature sensitive and rice farmers "successful management of resources for agriculture to satisfy in hotter regions might have to switch to other crops. changing hluman needs while maintaining or enhancing the The CGIAR centers are accustomed to developing quality of the environment and conserving natural resources." crops adapted to difficult growing conditions. If the Like most general definitions, this one is not much of a gloom ierpredictionsaboutitncreased UV-Braidiationi gui(le to a(tion. What counts, says, llubert Zandstra, current and glol)al warmi.ng prove accurate, their abilities chairman of the CC committee on sustainability, is working out will at a premiiun in supporting sustainable agri- what sltstaistIial)ility rneans for (lifferent crops, (Iifferent growi ng culture, and not just in the developing world. conditions, and, yes, different CCIAR centers More explicit in indicating future difficulties for agri- The Slog to Sustainability culture are the sobering statistics on the impact of population pressure on land resources. A recent assessment of future While the CGIAR may be seen as a leading apostle of operating conditions by the CG's wheat and maize center intensified agriculture, a large part of the centers' (CIMMYT) in Mexico, for example, estimates that the average I research is directed at finding alternatives to reliance area of cropland per person worldwide declined by a quarter on fertilizer, insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides (from 0.24 to 0.18 hectares) between 1950 and 1975 and is to keep crop production rising. Such "interven- expectedtodropanotherquarter(to0.13hectares)bytheendof tions." as they are known in agriculture argot, can the century. involve usingbiological means of pest control,taking ClMMYT's review puts the annual loss of arabe land 'advantage of cultural practices, finding better agro- through desertification at 6.0 million hectares with another 1.0 nomic methods such as miniiimum tillage to reduce to 1.5 million hectares lost through waterlogging and salinity. lsierosion,dvopistitutesoforesla n The net annual loss of topsoil through erosion is estimated at 26 burngsystems, and, prospectively,exploitngbiotech- 6 billion tons a year. o 7  The successes here tend not to be dramatic in the dlscovery or technology thut has improved the lives sense of having as widle an effec.t as the releause of farmers in developing countries. Most CGIAR of hligl-yielding varieties of rice or wheat might have successes don't capture prizes or attract wide notice, had in the heyday of the green revolution. But that but what is essential is that the centers keep on WAS uintisual. As Roger Rowe, deputy director winning victories-small and large-on the slog to general/research of the lnternational Maize and sustainability. Wheat Improvemont Ccnter (CIMMYT) in Mexico, puts it, "Talk about breakthroughs is exaggerated. Zandstra,whoisalsodirectorgeneraloftheCC'sInter- Agricultural research is a continuing process based national Potato Center (CIP) in Peru, emphasizes that on small gains here aind there every year. sustainability does not mean si mplypreservingthe environmen- What seems a small gain to most people may loom tal status quo. "We're dealt the cards and have to live with them. who dep .nd on cassava as a staple food, for example, But it doesn't just mean that the choices we make today about who depmend on casavaasastaple foofd,fonern example, using resources are to be permanently maintained. What we the cassava mealybug hias been of deep concern, The would like to see achieved in sustainability is that we will still quaintly named insect was acci(lentally introdluced udeder ro o. into Africa from Latin America in the early 1970s and have tlhat same numlber of chioices a hulidred years from now." was soon causing losses to cassava crops of tip to 80 It req(uires, in other words, that today's options be preserved or percent. increaIsed. In a coup for biological control, the International In pursuit of sustainability, the CGIAR has undertaken Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Africa the most extensive overhaul of policy and organization in its collaborated successfullywith thelnternational Cen- two-decade history. In 1990, it announced thiat it would expand ter for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Latin America the Group from 13 centers, adding at least four new member in seeking an answer to mealybug depredations and organizations from amdng other international agricultural re- found it in the forml ofaparasitic wasp, Epidinocarsis search centers, most of them modeled on the CG centers but lopez. Importation and distribution of the tiny wasp, operating outside the Group. a natural enemiiy of the mealybug in Latin America, is resulting in the reduction of the mcalybug popula- An Ol( Dilemma tions in Africa below economically damaging levels. A campaign patterned on the one against the cassava By embracing the changes, the Group'is facing up to an mealybug has been mounted against anotherscourge old dilemma. As the current chairman of the CGIAR, World of an important crop, the mango mealybug, and is Bank vice president Wilfried P. Thalwitz, candidly acknowl- making encouraging progress. edged at a press conference on the expansion, it is clear to the Hans Herren, director of IITA's Benin research CGIAR "that the element of sustainability is in some conflict station where the center's biological control program with thie basic aim of increasing productivity." is based, observed that "withi biological control |Resolving this conflict essentially means achieving a methods, no extensive pesticides are required, and better balance between work on Droductivity and on the small-scale African farmers wlio depend on crops sustainability. Tosuggest,that the Group isstarting from scratch likecassavaand mangotofeedttheirfamiliesarefreed in its quest for sustainability, however, would be a distortion. of a damaging pest by nature itself." . The CCIAR sees the key to su.stainability in research on1 "natural For work on biological control IITA and CIAT last resources management." This is research directed at under- year won the King Baudouin Award. The prize is ! standing and preserving the resource base on which agriculture given every two years to a CGIAR center for a specific , depends. Concern about such research traces back to the 8 t CGIAR's beginnings.  When the CC starte(l operations in 1971, it followed a That was not the en(l of the debate, however. As duial palttern in c reatiig new crop research centers. The first type scienltists at the CC centers turne(d their efforts to crops other than c(ol(centrate(londevelopingimproved varieiesofspecificcrops rice and wheat they found that the global commodity approach thirougliplantbreedingteciniqties;iiattvraIresourceworkrelated didri't work well in all locations. This was especially true in to those crops was a secondary function. The second model Africa where complex systems of production, harsh climate, placed majoremphasis on research on "agroecological" problems fragile soils, and a plethora of pests and plant diseases presented in the region where it operated; commodity research was a a daunting challenge. collateral responsibility. The CC centers' original strategy for Africa was to gain Donald L. Plucknett, Science Adviser to the CGIAR, quickresultsbyimportingplantvarietiesdevelopedelsewhere. observes that the four "regional" centers were "located within a That plan was quickly defeated by African growing conditions. particular production environment that had problems and that Thie centers were also confronted with higher hurdles in getting needed special attention." He says that the Rockefeller and Ford new technology adopted. The institutions and services required Foundations that had sponsored prototype intemational agri- I to enable the mass of African subsistence farmers to make the cultural research centers "decided that this was a good way to leap to green revolution agriculture were simply not available. tackle these problems" and the CG later took the same view. Quid Pro Quo Plus A Resistance Develops Coming up with an improved crop varietyor farming The CG's regional centers, however, encountered rough technique is one thing for the CGIAR centers. Per- going with their resources research. Thechairman of the Group's suading fanners indeveloping countries to use it may Technlical Advisory Committee (TAC), Alex F. McCalla, of the bequiteanother. Forexample,poorfarmerslivingon University of California at Davis, indicates that the conflict I the edge of subsistence in Africa, depend on what between prodIuition and sustainability flared up in the early they l)roduce to feed their families anid cannot afford (lays of the pilot regional centers, the International Institute of to gam)ble on novel technology. The CG centers, 'rOupic.al Agricutilture (IittA) inl Nigerial andtl thle Inlternlationall mIiust, therefore, demonstrate that an inn1ovationi is Center for Tropical Agricultture (CIAT) in Colombia. not u nsky venture. ClATstartedoutbyforminginerdisciplinaryteamstllatIf con1vincing poor farmers of an assured payoff is CIAT started out by forming interdisciplinary teamns that the key to the adoption of improved technol(ogy, the included economists and mathematicians to carry out systems same is doubly true of winning their cQoperation on modeling work on the environment. The idea was to make a measures to protect the environment. Particularl in comprehensive study of the resource base and use the results to Africa, where shihing cultivation is a prevailing plan research for the center. McCalla notes that there were pattern, land tenure and land use practices provide people in the CCIAR more interested ina"quick fix." Tlhesewere weak incentives for farmers to take the long view on notably partisans of a crop improvement approach who invoked the environment. Any initiative in sustainable agri- the successes of CIMMYT and IRRI to reinforce their views. culture must clearly appeal to farmer self-interest to WhenCIATgot new leadership in 1974,a judgment was be successful. made that the agroecological approach, while useful in defining I Examples of programs designed to do this are the problem, was not useful in solving it. CIAT's teams were being carried out by two CGIAR centers focused on sidelined. IITA underwent a similar cou rse correction. In the increasiniglivestockproduuctivity in Africa,theInter- 1970s, says McCalla, the dominant view in the CC system was national Livestock Center for Africa (ILCA) and the that the global commodity approach-the CG in-house term for International Laboratory for Research on Animal crop improvement-was the right way to go and that Diseases (ILRAD). In Africa, livestock and particu- 10 agroecological research took too long to show results. 11  larly cattle are of pivotal importanice to both the Scientists developed fodder banks-small pas- agricultural economny and the environment. In arid tures of legumes-that provide hiph quality feed for areas, cattle make life possible for pastoralists, but are herds in this period. Their appeal is based on mutual oftenblamed forenvironmental degradationthrough aldvantage for herders and farmers. overgrazing. In farming regions, livestock play mul- 1-lerds that have access to the fodder banks were tiple roles,providinganimal traction and manure for found to be generally more productive, notably in fertilizer or fuel and serving as a vital source of food respect to calf survival. l;armers-most in the area and cash for farm families, raise maize-reacted favorablyto fodderbanks when ILRAD research concentrates on two parasitic dis- trials demonstrated that grain yields on 2- or 3- year eases with the heaviest effect on livestock use and old fodder banks were substantially greater-by 1.5 to 2,5 tonnes per hectare--than on land that had been production in the region, theileriosis (East Coast f for upeto 6cyars. fever) and trypanosomi asis (sleeping sickness). Since faSoi udr the ferbo 1987, the center has had an epidemiology and sociol- nSitg wider the fodder banktsandt both from the ogy unit. It was formed both to study how improved I urine fromixedby the legves andnthe manure and disease control measures can best be applied and to assess the impact of such measures in epidemiologi- yfdder banks provide ground cover throughout the cal, economic, social, and environmental terms. condition 6f tho soil Creation of the unit was prompted in part by the Planting of fodder banks has spread from Kaduna rapid advances being made in control of parasitic | State where they got their start to other states in diseases generally and the prospects of early progress northern Nigeria-ILCA gives much of the credit to against livestock diseases through applications of the Nigerian goverpment's livestock service for the biotechnology. In the past, successes with disease increasing farmer acceptance of fodder banks. And control lhave led to rapid increases in livestock popu- interest in them is being expressed in othercountries lations resulting in damaging overgrazing on mar- in the dry zone, So ILCA seems to be showing that ginal lainds. The ILRAD unit, for example, hias begun| measures that both increase output and improve to study how changes in livestock systems effect sustainabilityarenotonlypossiblebutcanbepopular. household welfare in particular areas. Although the One response of the centers was to rely'more heavily on work is still in the early stages, the ultimate aim is to farming systems research. As the name implies, this sort of find ways to sustain increases in livestock produc- research involves looking at farming as a'system rather than tion without environmental degradation. An ILCA project begun in the subhumid zone of focusingonasinglecrop. Inparticular,farmingsystemsresearch nortliern Nigeria has a more immediate obiective of ! recognizes that farmers make decisions based on social and boosting crop and livestock production tbjecre and economic factors and takes these factors into account. Farming doing it in a fashion that benefits the environment. systems teams included asignificant proportion of social scien- Feed shortages in the dry season limit animal pro- tists. Thiscontributedtoincreasingtheirnumbers andstrengtli- ductivity in subhumid areas. Herders and farmers in ening their role in the centers. these areas historically have cooperated, with McCalla's appraisal is that a "farming systemns perspec- pastoralists migrating into farming areas during the tive"l has permeated the CCIAR. In practice, looking at fariniilg dry season and grazing their herds on farmers'fields as a system required the centers to make greater efforts to after the harvest. understand soil, water, weeds, and climate. By all accounts, a majority of farming systems programs in the centers were reborn 12 13  as resource management programs usirng a farming systems the close c.ooperation of the lnternational Potato aj)proach, Center (CllI) an(d the C)osta Rican national program. 'I'hedialectic betweenproduictivityandnatuiralresouirces Potatoes are a high value crop and also a favorite research, of course, did not proceed in a tidy an( linear fashion, host for a large number of pests and pathogens. as this account iiiiglht suggest. The dynamics varied fron ceniter Potatoes aie an increasingly popular crop among to center and the partisans did not divide on absolitist lines. No farmers in developing countries. Like their coun- one, for example, took the position that preserving the resource terparts in developed countries, they use pesticides base was unimportant. Nevertheless, the shiftin prioritiesintlhe to fend off attacks of insect pests. The results are also 1980s has gone in the direction of resource research. the same: control efforts require increasing amounts of insecticides. The target in the experimental program in Costa The Problem of Escalation Rica was th e potato tuber moth, which ranks as the most destructive and ubiquitous potato pest in de- The central challenge for the CGIAR is as old as velopingcountries. Potatofarmerstherehadresorted agriculture,buthasbeenintensifiedbymoderntech- to spraying against the tuber moth with the usual nology, In this century, industrialized countries results,saysKennethl.Brown,CIPdirectorofregional have achieved prodigious increases in production by programs. The moths' natural predators were killed breeding high-yielding crop varieties and plainting off so that when moth populations exploded there them in huge concentrations. The uniform genetic: was nothing to control them, "When you start make-up of the plants makes all of them highly spraying and find that the moths don't react, you vulncrable to the same pests and plant diseases. eitherputon more(insecticide)orswitchtosomething T'hese can sweep through a crop virtually destroying inore toxic because they've become resistant." CIP it. scientists call it "thed insecticide treadmill." In traditional agriculture, inultiple genetic strains A start was nade toward getting off the treadmill existing in the same field defend tthe crop from such with a s(u(ly of the moth's life cycle in a small area. losses. Bly adopting green revolution genetically- Next, a nlonitoring system was created to alert thie uniiformii crop varieties, poor farmers in developing farmers to big flights of the moths when the depos- countries have imported the problem of escalation in iting of eggs on the plants occurred causing the its acute form. ( danage. The modern practice has been to protect crops by "You didn't spraybeforethat," says Br6wn. "That heavy applications of agricultural chemicals. Such permitted the ladybugs and parasitic wasps and protection, however, is temporary. Insects and dis- other predators to pick off the small number of eases evolve resistance, the chemicals are applied in moths that were always around. When the place was increasing amounts, anid eveinttially become irnef- inunidated with moths and the predators couldi't fective. In the mean timne, dire environmenital side lhold tlhein, you'd go in and spray." effects can ensue. The contest is akin to the one The onset of spraying was delayed for several between offense and defense in military weaponry weeks and farmers have reduced their rounds of and tactics. spraying from about 20 to four or five. That meant a The CGIAR centers are putting much effort into major drop in chemical pollution and in cost. The researchlon metlodstocontrol majorpestsanl, attthe saune formula is being tried in Mexico near Leon same time, cut excessive use of pesticides. An where the tuber moth is rampant and potato farmers example of an alternative approach that worked was are spraying 24 or 25 times a season. This kind of developed inapotatogrowingareainCostaRicawith 15  S ~~~~~~~~~~~~- - . orchestrated control technique is an example of Nevertheless, the CGIAR favored the development of integrated pest management that is being heavily l agroforestryandactcdas institutionallgodfatherwhentheInter- einegrabted propst ma osutanageetta sbleagingeailyur i national Ce,nter for Research iin Agroforestry (ICRAF) was estab- reliedonbytheproponlentso)fsustaunableagricullture. lished in 1977. ICRAF was one of the non-CCIAR centers that cooperated most closely with the CGIAR centers and was among A close observer of the CGIAR, C. Edward Schuiih, dean the first centers selected in the 1990 expansion. of the Humiiplirey Iinstitute of Public Affairs at the University of During the CGIAR discussions about expansion in the Minnesota,HsaysthatCe IARstaff believedAstrongly invwhatttUley 1980s, a need for strategic research in forestry was strongly were doing in the cause of productivity and many "fouind the expressed. Such matters as tree breeding and research on forest concept of sustainability not very congenial in the 1970s." utilization and products were given priority. CGIAR planners Schuh says ue thinks that before signine on wholeheartedly for would have preferred to centralize agroforestry and forestry the trek to sustainability, some center directors went thro rgh a researchinasinglecenterandnominatedICRAF. ButICRAF has period of "denial" that took the form of sayingr 'We are atready astrongsenseofmission. It has concentrated on takingagroforestry working to increase thatt thfo o utput,' and tat will take systemsthat worksuccessfullyinthefieldandtransferringthem care of itn to other sites, and was unwilling to change its orientation to Schuh's perspective is that of a longtime participant in include a major forestry research program. the CG. lie says hle hlas seen-l a clange in ouatlook towarl Wheln the CGIAR looked elsewhere, it found tlhat tropi- sustainability in recent years and finds it "most sigiiircar.t" that cal forestry in the 1980s had broadened its focus from industrial the Group decided to bring in centers that specialized in forestry to take into account the need of rural people for such agroforestry, forestry, and irrigation, all of which have a strong and fruits and other forest productsranThmalsbuldingmaterialst natural resources managemenit emphasis. an frit an ot 'rfrs rdcs heslto aocet a new forestry institution. There are plenty of details to iron out on what exactly ICRAF and the new forestry center will do and A Place for Trees h1ow they will cooperate with each other and with the otlher centers, butthere is a sense of relief thatthe twocenters will help Thie CC decision in 1988 to include agroforestry and the CGIAR to deal better with a major natural resource. forestry in its mandate was not impelled by a sudden revelation on the importance of trees to tropical agriculture. There was Not by Research Alone never a dispute about the value to food production of trees, with their nitrogen-fixing properties and capacity to prevent erosion A realization reached early by the