Food Security, Research Priorities and Resource Allocation in South Asia

The study conduced on South Asian countries is focused on three issues, viz. (a) research priorities in agriculture, (b) level of research investment, and (c) focus of research investments to attain food-secured South Asia. The results of this empirical exercise have suggested that (a) cereals, horticulture, livestock and fisheries in commodity groups and rice and milk as commodities should receive greater attention in resource allocation at South Asia level with certain minor variations across the countries, (b) prioritization exercises need to explicitly target poor as otherwise their needs will continue to remain under-funded, and at least 2-3 times increase (if the AgGDP growth is assumed at 2.1%) and 3-4 times increase (if the AgGDP growth is assumed at 4%) is needed in funding support to these countries in agricultural research and education to attain food and nutritional security.