Hyderabad

Lack of funds is causing severe cutbacks at one of the few agricultural institutes to focus on the needs of the world's poor.

About a quarter of the workforce at ICRISAT (the International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics) in Andhra Pradesh, India, will lose their jobs, as the institute attempts to make up for a shortfall in support from rich countries' governments.

The institute will undergo restructuring and define a fresh research strategy aimed at securing new sources of funding, such as foundations and corporations, said director William Dar at a press conference earlier this month. This year's budget of US$22.3 million is down by $1.5 million from last year. “We had no option but to streamline the functioning,” Dar said. The cut in staffing — the fourth in two years — will reduce numbers by 205 to 600, the lowest since the institute was established in 1972.

Institute spokesman Murli Sharma says that failure by donors to fulfil their commitments is not new. But this year, several donor governments have backed out, using the economic slowdown caused by the 11 September attack on the United States as an “excuse”, Sharma says. He declined to identify the defaulters.

ICRISAT is one of 16 agricultural research labs run by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, based in Washington DC. Until now, its main focus has been on the five mandated crops — sorghum, millet, groundnuts, chickpeas and pigeonpeas — that are important to poor farmers in arid regions of Africa and India. Dar says the institute will now diversify into cash crops and livestock rearing, areas he hopes will attract new research sponsors.

These efforts to find new donors are starting to bear fruit. A New Delhi company, Proagro Seeds, has contributed $300,000 for a three-year sponsored project on millet. And the Tata Trust in Mumbai has promised $1 million for a three-year study on watershed management. “We need more non-traditional donors,” Dar says.

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