Benefits and Obstacles to Appropriate Agricultural Technology

Most forms of agricultural technology have not been transferred from developed to developing countries. This is particularly true of technology of the biogenetic type. Plants and animals interact with the soil and climate environments in which they live. Natural selection pressures produce highly varieagted species and types of plants and animals, each suited or appropriate to an environmental niche. Modern plant breeding methods have only partly overcome the sensitivity of biological material to environments. Environmental interactions play a lesser role in biochemical and mechanical technology in agriculture. Research programs to improve agricultural technology accordingly require a high degree of targeting to local environmental conditions. In some cases new technology, as in the improved "green revolution" wheat and rice varieties, is initially adapted to a wide range of environments. Improvements on the initial high-yielding varieties have tended to be more narrowly adapted. Agricultural research programs serving relatively small regions have been successful in undertaking adaptive research to develop region-specific improvements to varieties developed in international centers in the developing countries.