The following statement is from Dr. Per Pinstrup-Andersen who is H.E. Babcock Professor of Food, Nutrition, and Public Policy at Cornell University. Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen is a World Food Prize Lauriate and former Director General of IFPRI.

The productivity on small farms in developing countries must increase if the Millennium Development Goals for poverty and hunger are to be achieved. About 75 percent of the world's poor and hungry people live in rural areas and most of them depend on agriculture directly or indirectly. Increasing productivity, which reduces unit costs of production, can help poor farmers and farm workers out of poverty and hunger, generate employment and incomes in non-farm rural enterprises, and it can make available more food to poor consumers at lower prices. But such productivity increases must be based on sustainable management of soil, water, and forests. Sustainable agricultural production necessary to meet future food needs can be achieved only if science and technology is appropriately used. Genetic engineering and other aspects of biotechnology offer tremendous opportunities for people in developing countries to escape poverty and hunger. Since much of the technology needed to solve small farmers' problems is of a public goods nature and since small farmers may not have access to credit, the private sector will be unable to recuperate research and development costs associated with the development of the technology. Yet, the social benefits from such technology have been shown to be very large indeed. Therefore, public investment in research and development is urgently needed and efforts must be made to assure that public research institutions aiming at solving problems in developing countries have access to enabling technology required to do their work. Furthermore, technology appropriate for use by small farmers such as Bt-cotton should be made available at cost. While property rights to technology may be needed to promote research and development, they must not be used to slow down efforts to help people out of hunger and poverty. I believe PIPRA offers an exciting opportunity to facilitate the kind of research and technology needed.

Per Pinstrup-Andersen
H.E. Babcock Professor of Food, Nutrition, and Public Policy,
Cornell University
World Food Prize Lauriate and former Director General of IFPRI