Peter Rieder

Identifying criteria for public agricultural research decisions

Abstract Well defined criteria are critical for making complex decisions. Yet a review of the literature shows that criteria selection has not received major attention. This paper presents a framework for guiding practitioners in developing and structuring criteria for decision making on public-sector research. First, an initial list of criteria is generated based on objectives, available resources, context, and clients’ needs. Second, the relevancy of the criteria is judged with respect to the research alternatives to be evaluated. Third, the availability of data to apply the criteria is evaluated. The principle is to narrow down a broad list of criteria to the point where the research alternatives can be characterised by a minimum number of criteria. The procedure is illustrated with the case of Chile’s agricultural biotechnology programme. The paper concludes with a discussion on the benefits of the approach and the issues to be addressed in future applications.

Acceptance of modern biotechnology in developing countries: a case study of the Philippines

Recently, public acceptance of transgenic food has become a political issue, not only in industrialised, but also in developing countries with democratic systems such as India and the Philippines. This article presents a methodology that can be applied to assess public acceptance of agricultural biotechnology in developing countries. In the case of the Philippines, a survey of 65 respondents representing the main stakeholders involved in the public debate on biotechnology was conducted using a semi-standardised questionnaire. Perception patterns among the participants were evaluated by means of a cluster and a principal component analysis. The political weight attributed to each stakeholder was defined by applying a policy network analysis. The findings indicate that public acceptance of transgenic food crops is also a critical issue in the Philippines.