Since the 1980s, public investment in agricultural science in developed countries has stagnated or declined. Agricultural science has also shifted, moving away from increasing farm productivity, and instead to food processing, food safety and export promotion. Paarlberg in his book, Starved for Science, explains this as an adjustment thanks to overwhelming success. In the developed world, food is cheap and plentiful, and the challenges of overabundance are now as pressing as yield increases were 50 years earlier. Consequently, there is little desire to further develop crops for higher yield. While it may be possible to reject advancements in agricultural science while living in prosperity, many countries in the developing world don’t have the luxury. 

Acting on public skepticism towards agricultural science, developed countries have cut aid for agricultural development. For example, between 1980 – 2000 Paarlberg states that U.S. foreign assistance aimed at agricultural development decreased from 25% to 1%, and European aid decreased by 66%. U.S. contributions to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) decreased by 47% within the same time span. The resulting funding vacuum has not been filled by agribusinesses, such as Monsanto or Syngenta, who see little incentive in a market composed of poor smallholders unlikely to buy hybrid seeds. Without the involvement of either agribusiness or foreign governments, there is little hope of improving agricultural production in areas that need it most. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) the average annual growth in food production per capita actually decreased between 1980-2000.

Agricultural intensification is limited in much of Africa by decrepit infrastructure, little access to fertilizers, limited financial support, low mechanization, and a brutally hot climate chronically lacking in water. These conditions mean very few agricultural improvements or technology successful in temperate regions can be directly applied without adjustment, doubling the challenge. Not only do African governments and farmers need greater access to agricultural technology, they must also adapt it to local conditions and challenges. This requires a degree of research and development that becomes that much harder as organizations like the CGIAR are defunded.

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are contractual arrangements between a public agency and a private sector entity, which could be a private foundation, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The result is a high-performing hybrid, combining the theoretical advantages offered by both to provide a service or facility for the use of the general public. A potent example of the potential of PPPs is also the founding story of the Green Revolution and the CGIAR.

After three years of devastating wheat stem rust (Puccinia graminis var. tritici) infestations (1939-1941), the Rockefeller Foundation at the urging of the U.S. government formed a partnership with the Mexican government, the Cooperative Wheat Research and Production Program in Mexico. The aim of the partnership was to breed resistance against the fungus into Mexican wheat varieties. A recent graduate of the University of Minnesota, Norman Borlaug, was brought in from Dupont to head the breeding program. Borlaug was not known for brilliance, but stubborn persistence. Rob Dunn in his book, Never Out of Season, described Borlaug’s simple method: selectively perform as many crosses as possible until the desired traits were found. Over two years, 5,000 crosses were performed, yielding two resistant varieties. However, they weren’t responsive to nitrogen fertilization. Rather than wait a year between growing seasons, Borlaug used ‘shuttle breeding’. He set up an irrigated field thousands of miles north in the Sonoran Desert with a delayed growing season. Therefore, he could harvest the seeds from the first crop and plant them in the second site further north, doubling the number of crosses in one year. Alternating location had an unexpected benefit, the resulting varieties were not only resistant to stem rust, but were photoperiod insensitive, and didn’t require dormancy to germinate. They were also incredibly productive with the application of fertilizer and irrigation. However, wheat apportioned most of its energy to growing taller, this resulted in lodging. Borlaug’s solution was to cross his rust resistant varieties with Japanese dwarf wheat to produce a semi-dwarf wheat. By 1950 Borlaug had released eight new varieties to Mexican farmers, and by 1956 they were grown across the country, producing four times the harvest of 1945. Within a generation, Mexico had become entirely self-sufficient. 

There is a continued need to improve crop performance, particularly in locally grown crops that are chronically under-researched and developed, such as pearl millet. PPPs are a potentially effective vehicle in developing countries with limited extension services, to increase their capacity to better address the needs of local producers. In general, a world without hunger needs more agricultural development and research.