Institution: Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan
E-mail: otsukake@bcomp.metro-u.ac.jp
Biosummary:
Keijiro Otsuka received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1979. After spending one year at the Economic Growth Center of Yale University, he joined the Tokyo Metropolitan University and he is currently a professor of economics in this university. He was a visiting scientist at IRRI from 1986 to 1989 and has been a visiting research fellow at IFPRI since 1993. His research areas include economics of technological change, income distribution, land tenure, and natural resource management.
Title: "Role of agricultural research in poverty reduction: Lessons from Asian experience."
Theme: Key 2
There are three major ways by which agricultural research can contribute to poverty reduction. Since the poor spend a considerable share of their incomes on foods, the first objective of agricultural research should be to ensure adequate supply of foods at affordable prices by developing yield-increasing technologies. Second, since the poor depend primarily on labor income, the research should aim to increase labor demand by developing labor-using technologies. Third, since the poor tend to reside in unfavorable or marginal agricultural areas, the research should attempt to develop technologies suitable for such areas. These three objectives, however, are often conflicting. In my view, how to balance the achievement of the different objectives is the major challenge we face. The purposes of this paper are to review the experience of rice Green Revolution in Asia, to examine changing income structure of the rural poor in the Philippines, and to assess the contribution of agroforestry technologies to income generation for the poor in Indonesia, in order to draw useful lessons for appropriate agricultural research strategies in future.