3
INDICATIVE PRIORITIES FOR ACIAR PROJECTS
PACIFIC ISLAND COUNTRIES
The number of Pacific Island Countries presents challenges in consulting formally with each to determine research priorities. ACIAR therefore relies on the meetings of Permanent Heads of Agriculture and Livestock Services (PHALPS), Fisheries and Forestry, supplemented by consultation with regional organisations (particularly the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC), the South Pacific Regional Environmental Program (SPREP) and Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) to determine a priority framework for collaboration with PICs. In October 2001, with the Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions (APAARI), ACIAR co-sponsored a priority-setting workshop on Pacific regional research priorities. Emerging from these meetings, and addressing areas of Australian expertise required for collaboration, ACIAR has developed an informal framework of priorities for collaborative research.
ACIAR also has in place a set of guiding principles and strategies relating to ACIAR’s program in the Pacific, building upon the detailed analyses of the agencies noted above. The strategy identifies key areas of research and key institutional linkages, emphasises the importance of capacity building, and fosters a balance between training and research. It seeks to ensure the effective transfer of technology in the context of the limited extension capacity of individual Pacific Island Countries.
The following priorities are not to be considered as officially sanctioned priorities of the individual PIC Governments. ACIAR will use them as a framework when assessing proposals for collaborative projects to be supported by ACIAR, subject to further advice and information from individual PICs and regional organisations. Researchers intending to propose collaborative research projects with PIC counterparts for ACIAR support should, in the first instance, approach one of ACIAR’s Research Program Managers.
There are significant challenges of market access including implications of WTO accession, quarantine-related issues, product quality, and remoteness of export markets. The limited research capability in the region, resulting from the small populations of most countries, is an ongoing constraint, and means that assistance with certain technologies, such as genetic engineering will have to be obtained from outside the region. Programmatic areas of emphasis will include agricultural development policy and systems economics, fisheries, forestry and crop protection. Commodity-based research on crop and livestock breeding and production may be difficult to conduct cost-effectively, and relevant technology can mostly be adapted from research carried out elsewhere. Research projects should also recognise the environmental fragility of many countries and/or ecosystems and the huge ocean-to-land ratio of most Pacific countries.
Potential areas for collaboration are grouped under ACIAR program areas for convenience:
Agricultural Economics, including Policy
· Research into comparative economics of production and market demand of different commodities
· Agribusiness market chain analysis
· Agricultural information systems and statistics services for capacity development in agricultural policy-making, especially relating to trade
· Effect on viability of rural communities due to reduction of market subsidies and erosion of preferential access to export markets
· Natural resource management policy, particularly of fisheries and forestry management, biodiversity conservation, climate change and environmental effects of urbanisation
· Quarantine risk management policy, including research underpinning harmonisation of bio-security policies in the region
· Population growth, urbanisation and land availability for agriculture
Animal Sciences
· Development of integrated and sustainable crop-livestock systems
· Formulation of low-cost feeds for livestock using local ingredients
· Management of animal wastes in community systems
· Establishing the animal health status of livestock, particularly diagnosis and management of emerging zoonotic diseases
Crop Sciences
· Conservation, characterisation and utilisation of crop plant genetic resources, with an emphasis on root and tree crops
· The other focus is on crop protection, with emphases on constraints to production as well as crop protection systems to underpin quarantine services to assist in trade:
- development of capacity for survey and identification of crop pests, diseases and weeds
- technical inputs to assist implementation of control systems for fruit flies
- biocontrol of weeds and pests
- management systems, including IPM, for pests and diseases of major crops
Fisheries
· Development and establishment of profitable low-to-medium technology aquaculture, with a focus on coral reef-based farming systems, and culture- mediated resource enhancement and sea ranching opportunities.
· Stock status assessment and management planning for the sustained use of vulnerable inshore fisheriesresources, with an emphasis on community-level management and co-management approaches.
· Enhancing regional capacity in aquatic bio-security.
Forestry
· Sustainable harvesting cycles in plantation systems, including optimisation of nutrition and management, and development of inventory, growth and yield models.
· Agroforestry systems for atoll environments
· Reforestation technologies
· Forest pest and disease information systems and management
· Utilisation and marketing of timber and non-wood forest products
Land and Water Resources
· Management of fresh water resources, especially in atoll agriculture
· Effective utilisation of crop and livestock wastes
· Better management of land degradation, including maintenance of soil fertility within farming systems
Postharvest Technology
· Capacity building in appropriate postharvest and disinfestation systems for tropical fruits
· Capacity building in sanitary and phytosanitary systems to underpin export requirements
· Value addition, quality assurance and marketing of crop products
· Access to markets for horticultural products in remote regions