Cruz, Stephanie Nicole M.

2013-48366
AERS 142
The short article generally talked about the problems arising from the new agricultural
knowledge system that have been reported in the U.S. in year 1999. It narrated how the issues of
agricultural innovation, the privatization of knowledge generation due to lack of appropriate
division of labor, or what we call synergism in research collaborations between the private and
the public sector, and the lack of balance of efficiency and equity of the outcomes in the
agricultural knowledge system affect the both sectors, especially the end users sector.
Kalaitzandonakes (1999) explained that the agricultural innovation had brought benefits
to the public investments due to the increase in the average annual return on agricultural research
and technology transfer of over 30 percent, as well as benefits to the consumers because of the
low-priced, high quality, and safe food produced with the help of new technologies. However,
this, in turn, brought otherwise for the U.S. farmers since they were considered as laggards in
time of agricultural innovation, resulting to their net income losses. Only the ones who were able
to adopt the new technologies and with technically sophisticated farms received economic
gains. To address this issue, the answer was to focus on the new agricultural knowledge
generation and transfer. The private sector investments in research increased through time (the
private sector used to refuse investing in fundamental agricultural research thinking that
knowledge is a public good in nature), and even though knowledge generation and transfer
accelerated and developed with the aid of funding, it also developed a new arising problem with
the competition between the private and the public sector. The private sector was said to change
the motivation of conducting research to obtain economic gains, manipulating the public
research agenda, which should not be the case; the private and the public sector must work in
synergy in order to nurture the agricultural knowledge system (Buller & Taylor; Holt & Bullock;
Rausser, in Kalaitzandonakes, 1999). Kalaitzandonakes suggested to create a whole new and
balanced agricultural knowledge system with integrity, efficiency, equity, and full capacity.
Through reading the article, I came to realize how the agricultural knowledge generation
and transfer in the U.S. is somehow similar to our case in the Philippines. Our Filipino farmers
with less technology in their farms do not gain the same benefits from those who are able to
adopt new technologies. The poor farmers remain poor (or may become poorer in some cases).
However, throughout the years, the government, together with research and development
institutions, universities, and funding agencies conduct researches, develop and implement
programs that will empower and enable the farmers, and other end-users by providing them
information to help them solve problems in their lands and communities. The process of
knowledge generation and transfer is slowly becoming open to the public, enabling them to gain
trust toward these information and programs.
So far, we can observe institutions collaborate with each other in different programs, but
we can also observe that some projects are still used for private individuals to gain profit. Case in
point is the reported Fertilizer Scam in 2004 which could have been agricultural fertilizer funds
which allegedly turned to be electoral campaign funds for ex-President Gloria Macapagal-

Arroyo. The interaction between the sectors continue to progress into a good collaboration, but
the anomalies are still expected as shortcomings.
After several class activities and through reading this article, I was able to have a
background on what agricultural knowledge system is. Based on my understanding so far, an
agricultural knowledge system is a system wherein information seeking, production, storage,
retrieval, and sharing take place in the course of agriculture. Through this system, the intended
users of information will be able to solve agricultural problems in their communities, enabling
them to have more improved livelihood and quality of living, and relationships with their costakeholders. An agricultural knowledge system will not be complete without the collaboration
of the public and private sector that will ensure the acceleration of knowledge generation and
transfer from new information to end-users. However, efficiency and equity must also be ensured
in order to create a socially optimal agricultural knowledge system. The challenge remains to
create a system that does not sacrifice a quality for another.