Most of us in our development years have very strongly articulated the concept of food sovereignty. In our work most of us have argued and struggled to reclaim agriculture reclaim land, reclaim food production, reclaim seeds and reclaim knowledge. But there has not been much articulation about reclaiming agricultural research. Though I am sure that almost everyone of us would be unanimous in our view that into this string of reclaiming our autonomy as farmers we do seriously consider reclaiming agricultural research. Probably it gets a bit unarticulated because some of us might be a shade unsure whether farmers can and will do agresearch at all.

I think the time has come for us to debunk this myth that agricultural research should lie in the hands of the formal research institutions run by formal agricultural researchers. Whether in SANFEC or in BASA ASIA, we have already taken many steps to dialogue, debate and discuss farmer-led research as well as to initiate grounded actions involving frontier research where communities and farmers are involved directly in designing, data collection and analysing. The Uncultivated Foods study undertaken by SANFEC members, the Economics of Ecological Agriculture by the Deccan Development Society and the Bt Cotton study done by the AP Coalition in Defence of Diversity and Deccan Development Society are some initiatives in illustration.

In recent years, a number of international efforts that claim to make science and technology work for the poor are dominated by two main approaches:

• Development as modernisation: using science and technology to stimulate economic growth in an increasingly competitive global economy, with benefits of scientific innovation spreading down to the very poor.

• Universal fixes. Science and technology are directed to alleviating poverty, hunger and disease, with scientific innovations leading to direct and widespread improvements in human well being.

A third,- less visible -, approach recognizes that technological fixes are not enough and sees science as part of a bottom up, participatory process of development in which citizens themselves take centre stage. Instead of being seen as passive beneficiaries of trickle down development or technology transfer, citizens are viewed as knowledgeable and active actors who are centrally involved in both the ‘upstream’ choice and design of scientific innovations, and their ‘downstream’ implementation, spread and regulation.

It is noteworthy that much of ‘Food and Agricultural Research’ is informed by the modernising and the linear transfer of universal technology approaches, - both in theory and practice. This is apparent in the current draft of the International Assessment of Agriculture Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD).  The IAASTD is a multi-volume assessment of how agricultural knowledge, science and technology (AKST) can help to reduce hunger and poverty, improve health and rural livelihoods, and facilitate equitable development that is environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable.  The main rationale for the IAASTD is
that there has never been a balanced, multi-stakeholder assessment of the overall consequences of investment in agricultural knowledge and technology since World War II, including the original Green Revolution and today’s research emphasis on biotechnology and biofuels.  Documenting these impacts and drawing lessons from them are essential to understand how agriculture knowledge and technology can be generated and used more effectively to meet development goals.  The IAASTD is supposed to guide agricultural research and investments on the part of the World Bank and United Nations agencies in the future.

However, - whilst several progressive civil society organisations and scholars have contributed to the IAASTD process - , there have been relatively few direct inputs from small scale farmers, indigenous peoples, resource users, food workers and ordinary citizens on what kind of food and agricultural research they want. A more inclusive and participatory approach is therefore needed to complement the IAASTD.
 
A new initiative by the Deccan Development Society, India and the International Institute for Environment and Development, UK proposes to pilot such a citizen centred and bottom up process of deliberation and inclusion, - one in which scientific innovations are seen as part of broader systems of governance and markets, extending from local to national and international levels.

This initiative to rethink food and agricultural research assumes that scientific innovations can be beneficial to small scale producers and the rural poor. But for this to occur, scientific and technical innovations need to build on the perspectives, knowledge and priorities of farmers and other citizens, responding to their diverse local realities and needs. More fundamentally, this means putting hitherto marginalised farmers and citizens at the heart of the governance of research on food and agriculture.

This action research builds on earlier work by DDS and IIED on deliberative and inclusive processes to enhance citizen voice in policy making and agenda setting for science and technology. These new experiments with deliberative and inclusive processes offer opportunities to broaden citizen and non specialist involvement in decisions around science and technology as well as policy making, resource allocation and institutional choices. For example, earlier work on the governance of food systems and biodiversity in India aimed to link local voices and visions on the future of food, farming, environment and rural development with national and international policy making. Prajateerpu was devised as a means of allowing those people most affected by the government’s “Vision 2020” for food and farming in Andhra Pradesh to shape a vision of their own. This deliberative process included marginalised small farmers, women and indigenous peoples, and combined elements from established techniques such as citizens juries and scenario workshops with safeguards such as an oversight panel, video scenario presentations and witnesses.

The Deccan Development Society and the IIED is very keen to develop a South Asia partnership on this initiative that will be in place over the next two years. In order to discuss the shape and content of this partnership, Dr Michel Pimbert and I would like to organise a One Day Consultation on September 4, 2008 at the Pastapur village where the DDS is headquartered.