• 

Cross posted from AgTrials

Ministries of agriculture, universities, donor agencies, NGO’s — everybody — should be investing in infrastructure for evaluating and testing agricultural technology. This blog post from the GCP shows the benefits. I had the great fortune to visit a trial site where Hannibal Muhtar (in photo) was helping researchers from a national agricultural research service install irrigation infrastructure. Imagine a place with a rainy season lasting 4 months and 8 months dry season. With irrigation, the research station can now carry out trials and multiply seeds during 2 additional “off” seasons, using irrigation. So, your testing, evaluation and breeding program speeds up from 1 to 3 cycles per year. Many agricultural research stations are also the site of seed multiplication programs to support local farmers to do their own on-farm research and development. Infrastructure improvements on an experiment station may also include improved weather stations, drainage, fencing, tractors and other farm equipment, among many others. If you want to make a smart investment in R&D, there is perhaps none better than investing in trial sites and agricultural technology evaluation.

See the GCP post here:

http://blog.generationcp.org/2012/06/20/hitting-the-nail-on-the-head-a-nuts-and-bolts-approach-to-local-capacity-empowerment-short-version/

•