Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Note on acronyms and currency
- 1 Concern for land
- 2 Land resource issues
- 3 Resource survey and land evaluation
- 4 Competition for land
- 5 Working with farmers
- 6 Land use planning
- 7 Land degradation
- 8 Global issues: climatic change and biodiversity
- 9 Monitoring change: land resource indicators
- 10 Costing the earth: the economic value of land resources
- 11 Land management: caring for resources
- 12 Research and technology
- 13 Land, food, and people
- 14 Population, poverty, and conflict
- 15 Awareness, attitudes, and action
- Notes
- References
- Index
12 - Research and technology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Note on acronyms and currency
- 1 Concern for land
- 2 Land resource issues
- 3 Resource survey and land evaluation
- 4 Competition for land
- 5 Working with farmers
- 6 Land use planning
- 7 Land degradation
- 8 Global issues: climatic change and biodiversity
- 9 Monitoring change: land resource indicators
- 10 Costing the earth: the economic value of land resources
- 11 Land management: caring for resources
- 12 Research and technology
- 13 Land, food, and people
- 14 Population, poverty, and conflict
- 15 Awareness, attitudes, and action
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
The view that further research into land resource management is unnecessary, that all that is needed is more widespread application of existing knowledge, rests on a misunderstanding of the nature of science, in its pure and applied aspects. A spectrum of research is needed: fundamental, basic, applied and adaptive. Universities and international centres are best fitted to carry out fundamental and basic research, national institutions the applied and adaptive. The final stage of research is carried out by farmers, critically trying out new methods. The achievements of the ‘green revolution’ phase of research, based on improved crop varieties, led to threefold to fivefold increases in crop yields. Further advances will be achieved, but more slowly and with greater effort. The problems encountered with high-technology, highinput land use systems have led to a new approach to research, which stresses maintenance of soil biological activity and improved nutrient cycling, leading to more efficient use of limited inputs.
Whether assessed in economic terms or in its wider contribution to human welfare, research produces extremely high ratios between benefits and costs. There is a serious shortfall in funding. At the international level, donors should at least double the proportion of aid directed towards research; by doing so, they will bring longer-lasting benefits to farmers. Still more important is that governments of developing countries should recognize the need to strengthen their presently inadequate national research services. Farmers will not adopt improved methods without a basis of applied and adaptive research to ensure that these are convincingly effective.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Land ResourcesNow and for the Future, pp. 203 - 219Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998