The public and private sectors have different and sometimes contradictory objectives, but that doesn’t mean the two sides can’t work to-gether, says Hans-Joachim Braun.
It’s all in the planning, said the wheat program director for CIMMYT, a non-profit research centre headquartered in Mexico that works to increase productivity of corn and wheat crops in developing countries.
“If the public and private sectors form alliances, we can combine our strengths. Through co-operation, both sides can learn a great deal from another,” he told Saskatchewan Agriculture’s recent Wheat Summit in Saskatoon.
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“If we don’t, wheat continues to be the most underinvested crop and eventually farmers will consider it a non-competitive crop in the developed and developing world.”
Braun said there are misconceptions that public sector institutions want to give everything away and that the private sector only wants to make profits. There are obstacles, but they aren’t insurmountable, he added. Both sides are interested in serving emerging markets and finding new applications for research.
The benefit of collaboration is efficiency. Breeders talked at the summit about the difficulties achieving advances in wheat, and Braun said there’s room for everyone to work together on a shared problem.
“Once that has been done, they let everybody afterwards compete, but don’t try to compete all the time, because that is much more expense and a much tougher way to reach a goal,” said Braun.
However, the issue of intellectual property was a recurring theme at the conference. He said clear expectations are crucial at the initial stages of these partnerships, and the involvement of both parties should be established from the outset.
“The issue of (intellectual property) should really be discussed openly, and eventually you have to decide who will do what and where,” he said.
“I think this is really crucial to come to such agreements.”
Agreements must specify how the technology can be used and shared.
For example, one agreement could allow both sides to use the technology to develop cultivars, but the technology itself would remain confidential. Other agreements may allow one side to develop a product and the other to market it, with one side claiming a royalty or exclusivity to a certain market.
CIMMYT, which has a lengthy list of international public donors, has partnered with Syngenta for wheat research. The agreement, according to the centre’s website, “will leverage Syngenta’s highly developed genetic market technology.”
Added Braun: “We enter research agreements, we are basically very selfish, because we want to get something out of such partnerships, which helps our clients, and these are the poor farmers in developing countries.”
