ANALYSIS OF GOVERNANCE IN AGRICULTURE – A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND APPLICATIONS

Suresh BabuInternational Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC

Devi Prasad JuvvadiCenter for Good Governance, HyderabadInternational Conference on "Governance and Service Delivery in Agriculture and Allied Sectors"

International Conference on "Governance and Service Delivery in Agriculture and Allied Sectors"

Hyderabad, December 18, 2014

This presentation will cover

1. Emerging Issues in Agricultural Development and Why Governance in Agriculture is important

2. Definitions of Governance applied to agriculture

3. A conceptual framework for Analysis Governance in Agriculture

4. Applications to Agricultural Development Challenges

5. Specific Priorities and Constraints

6. Concluding Remarks

EMERGING ISSUES

•Recent Food Crisis and Food price volatility

•Sustainable Production Systems•Climate Smart Agriculture•Agricultural – Nutrition- Health Linkages

•Improving Markets and Trade in Agriculture

•Building Resilience in Food and Agriculture Systems

•Strengthening Institutions and Governance

•Resolving these require Good Governance

WHY STUDY GOVERNANCE IN AGRICULTURE?

• Poor governance in various subsectors stifle progress in agriculture development

• Large wastage of resources prevention spending on productive investments

• Low morality of the public servants• Low quality of inputs – seeds and fertilizers to the farmers

• Low standards and marketing regulations increase transaction costs and reduces income of the farmers

• Poor regulation of food safety laws affect consumers

• Unorganized regulatory system for biotechnology affects adoption of new technologies

• More examples could be said that are context specific.

DEFINITIONS OF GOVERNANCE

Several Definitions Exist:

•Governance as the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development. (Asian Development Bank)

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE DEFINITION

•Formation and stewardship of the formal and informal rules that regulate the environment in which state and other players interact to make decisions (ODI).

UNDP DEFINITION

•Governance is the exercise of political, economic, and administrative authority in the management of a country’s affairs including mechanisms, processes, and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations, and mediate their (UNDP)

WORLD BANK DEFINITION

•Traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised such as selection of governments, capacity to formulate and implement policies and the respect for institutions that govern the interactions of the state and its citizens (World Bank).

AGRICULTURAL GOVERNANCE INVOLVES

•Agricultural development process which improves:

•Organization and management of Institutions

•Effective functioning of the institutions•Design and implementation of policies•Development of rules and regulations to support policies and laws

•Ensuring active participation of all stakeholders at all levels

MAJOR PRINCIPLES OF GOOD GOVERNANCE (UNDP)

•Participation•Consensus-orientation•Accountability•Transparency•Responsiveness•Equity and inclusiveness•Effectiveness and efficiency•Consistency with the rule of law.

INDICATORS OF GOOD GOVERNANCE

•Voice and accountability •Political stability and absence of violence

•Government effectiveness •Regulatory quality•Rule of law•Control of corruption

Source: Kraufmann, D. & Kraay, A. 2002. Growth without governance. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No.

2928.

GOVERNANCE IN AGRICULTURE

• Agricultural Governance depends on the governance of various sub sectors

• Land sector• Input supply systems – eg: seed, fertilizer, mechanization

• Output marketing systems• Market institutions

– Food processing sector– Food safety systems

• Agricultural education institutions• Agricultural research institutions• Agricultural extension institutions

ANALYSIS OF AGRICULTURAL GOVERNANCE

A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Agricultural Governance

Agricultural Governance

Agricultural Subsectors

Land Sector

Input supply and Delivery

Output Supply systems

Marketing and Trade

Agricultural Research

Agricultural Educaiton

Agricultural Extension

Governance Indicators **********

Voice and accountability

Political stability and absence of violence

Government effectiveness

Regulatory quality

Rule of law

Control of corruption

AN HYPOTHETICAL EXAMPLE FOR DEVELOPING AN AGRICULTURAL

GOVERNANCE INDEX

•Enlist different sub sectors of the agriculture •Apply a set of indicators of governance to each of them – a range from 0-1

•Conduct a key informants interviews to find out the values of the indicators

•Combine them to form an index at the sub sector level

•Combine the sub sector indexes into aggregate level Agricultural Governance Index

•An example is given next – could be done for comparing – districts, states, countries.

AGRICULTURE GOVERNANCE INDEXCombining Governance Indicators for Sub-Sectors of Agriculture

Market Agricultural

Institutions education

Voice and accountability

0.8 0.4 0.3 0.6 0.9 0.8 0.5 4.3

Political stability and absence of violence

0.6 0.5 0.6 0.5 0.7 0.4 0.6 3.9

Government effectiveness

0.7 0.5 0.7 0.5 0.7 0.4 0.7 4.2

Regulatory quality

0.7 0.5 0.6 0.8 0.4 0.4 0.5 3.9

Rule of law 0.8 0.5 . 0.7 0.5 0.6 0.5 3.6

Control of corruption

0.5 0.5 0.5 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.4 3.8

Subsector Governance

0.68333333 0.4833333 0.54 0.6333333 0.6333333 0.5333333 0.5333333 3.95

0.577143

Agriculture Governance

Governance indicator

Land Governance

Input supplyOutput systems

Agricultural Extension

Agricultural research

LEVELS OF ANALYSIS

• International level• National level

• Public Sector / Government

• Private sector• Civil society

• Local level

Thematic Approach to Measuring Agriculture Governance – Applications to Agricultural Development Challenges

Governance for sustainable food production

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Supporting the CAADP framework

Governance of groups working on specific

emerging challenges – Eg: climate change

Global and National governance of technology development -Biotechnology and Biosafety

Global and national governance of Natural resource degradation

Governance for global understanding and

debate of issues and agenda setting

Governance for Promoting healthy food systems

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Governance of development and adoption of nutrient enhanced

crops

Governance of agriculture –Nutrition – Health

Linkages

Governance of new nutrition initiatives: how repetitive they are and compete for resources

Governance of steering smallholder sector to the

Nutrition Objectives – local, national , global levels

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Governance in innovation marketing – eg: Reducing information asymmetries

via contract farming

Governance of food markets – National and international market

regimes – eg: WTO

Global and National governance for managing food

price spikes and volatility

Governance of new markets for supporting smallholder farmers in the event of climate change – eg:

Insurance markets

Governance for improving markets and trade

Governance for agriculture transformation

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Governance of Mechanization : eg: medium-scale farms

transformation

Supporting the CAADP framework

Governance for promoting transformation at the regional and global levels eg: CAADP

Governance for transformation of small farms: eg: business orientation of small farms

Governance of development of Value chains: eg: retail food

markets

Governance for building resilient food systems

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Governance though decentralization: can it improve resilience of local food systems ?

Governance of Transfer modalities: Cash, food, or

vouchers?

Governance for Emergency responses – information – early warning - Targeted transfers for

emergencies

Governance of interventions and resilience in conflict zones

Strengthening institutions for improved governance

Governance to promote gender mainstreaming in

agriculture

Governance for improved rural service delivery

Governance of Knowledge flow – evidence based policy making and policy process

Governance for creating and nurturing new

institutions : Eg farmer cooperatives

Specific Challenges

Specific challenges

• Lack of understanding of the concepts of Governance and it implications

• No serious efforts to measure or monitor the governance indicators to compare progress temporally and spatially

• Specific subsectors may pull down overall governance – need for closer look beyond sectoral level

• Lack of quality research and outreach to engage policy makers

Concluding remarks• Little effort has been made to apply

Governance Concepts in agriculture

• Need to integrate broader governance goals in the agriculture sector – problems are diverse and sub sectors are multiple

• Apply the concepts to identify the governance gaps in various indicators and subsectors – conceptual framework is presented

• Further emerging thematic areas require governance research at all levels – global, national, local.

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