an agricultural research and innovation system, including promotion of sustainable agriculture and enhancement of nutritional security, human health and rural livelihoods, and AKST depends on the priorities. At the same time, an agricultural research and innovation system and certain AKST could help mitigate environmental degradation and social inequities. Reaching all of these goals will be difficult; various agricultural research and innovation systems favor particular goals at the expense of others. These alternative futures expand the spectrum of possibilities and will facilitate discussions among decision makers about strategic choices.
5.1.2 Review of related studies
A number of recent foresight exercises focusing on agriculture, rural development, environment, science and technology have been undertaken at global and regional levels. Different kinds of approaches have been used to address future changes pertaining to agriculture. Some have employed projections accompanied by limited policy simulations. Others have proposed scenarios and considered a wide range of uncertainties in an integrated manner. They all explore key linkages between different drivers and resulting changes. They all conclude that business as usual will not suffice. However, no assessment has explicitly focused on the future role of AKST.
5.1.2.1 At global level
A number of quantitative models have been developed by such organizations as IFPRI, the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI), FAO, OECD, and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.
Partial equilibrium models (PE) treat international markets for a selected set of traded goods, e.g., agricultural goods in the case of partial equilibrium agricultural sector models. These models consider the agricultural system as a closed system without linkages with the rest of the economy, apart from exogenous assumptions on the rest of the domestic and world economy. The strength of these partial equilibrium models is their great detail of the agricultural sector. The "food" side of these models generally uses a system of supply and demand elasticities incorporated into a series of linear and nonlinear equations, to approximate the underlying production and demand functions. World agricultural commodity prices are determined annually at levels that clear international markets. Demand is a function of price, income and population growth. Regional biophysical information (for land or water availability, for example) is constraining the supply side of the model (IAASTD Global Chapter 5).
Computable general equilibrium (CGE) models are widely used as an analytical framework to study economic issues of national, regional and global dimension. CGE models provide a representation of national economies, next to a specification of trade relations between economies. CGE models are specifically concerned with resource allocation issues, that is, where the allocation of production factors over alternative uses is affected by certain policies or exogenous developments. International trade is typically an area where such induced effects are important consequences of policy choices. CGE models have sometimes been used to |
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provide a scientific guarantee in support of full trade liberalization (Boussard et al., 2006).
Beyond IAASTD, major global environmental assessments include:
• The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA, 2005).
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assesses scientific, technical and socioeconomic information needed to understand climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. In 2007, IPCC finalized its Fourth Assessment Report.
• The UNEP-led Global Environment Outlook (GEO) project focuses on the role and impact of the environment for human well-being and the use of environmental valuation as a decision tool.
• The OECD environmental outlook to 2030 focuses on environment-economic linkages to 2030. The projections are complemented by qualitative discussions based on extensive OECD analytical work.
• The Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture led by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) critically evaluated benefits, costs and the impacts of the past 50 years of water development and looks at current challenges to water management.
• The Global Scenario Group (GSG) was convened in 1995 by the Stockholm Environment Institute to examine the prospects for world development in the twenty-first century. Numerous studies at global, regional and national levels have relied on the Group's scenario framework and quantitative analysis (Kemp-Benedict et al., 2002).
Chapters 4 and 5 of the global IAASTD report have reviewed a number of quantitative models extensively (see Table 5-1 in the Global Report):
• IMPACT-WATER. A partial equilibrium agricultural sector model with a water simulation module developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) (Rosegrant et al., 2002). Using this model, IFPRI has made a number of studies, e.g., Global Food Projections to 2020 (Rosegrant et al., 2001), Global water outlook to 2025 (Rosegrant et al., 2004), Fish to 2020: supply and demand in changing global markets (Delgado et al., 2003), Food security (Von Braun et al., 2005),
• IMAGE. Integrated model to assess the global environment developed under the auspices of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (MNP) (Bouwman et al., 2006),
• GTEM. Global trade and environment model, a computable general equilibrium model developed by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) (Pant, 2002),
• WATERSIM. Water, Agriculture, Technology, Environment and Resources Simulation Model developed by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and IFPRI (de Fraiture et al., 2006),
• GLOBIO3. Global methodology for mapping human impacts on the biosphere, a consortium that seeks to develop a global model for exploring the impact of en- |