Many people and organisations concerned with agricultural research and development are
still unaware of the creation of a Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR), or have
only a vague idea what it might be. In this article, a member of a German-based
nongovernmental organisation (NGO) that promotes ecologically-oriented agriculture
examines the process of building the GFAR and describes the response of NGOs. The
GFAR initiative is an attempt to open up agricultural research to a wider group of

When the PELUM Board tasked me to coordinate the Small Farmer Convergence (SFC) process in April 2002, I felt a big load lending on my shoulders. For, even though most of the PELUM member countries had already begun the sensitisation and agenda setting process, we had no resources then, nor did we have the farmer issues and concerns in consolidated form. There was too little time to raise the resources and to make the necessary preparations. But today, as I write this foreword in Johannesburg, I realise that there was indeed enough time for the SFC got to do what we set out to do.

For the last two decades, NGOs have been the targets of many multilateral and bilateral organizations in development partnerships. At the same time, research has developed similar partnerships with NGOs. Since 1995, the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) opened its doors to non-agricultural research partners such as NGOs, the private sector, farmers¿ organizations, etc. Since then many international centers such as ICRISAT, ICRAF, IRRI ,WARDA¿etc have developed some partnerships with NGOs.

The main objectives of the workshop included:
¿ To inform NGO networks and FO umbrella/network on recent developments in agricultural research at national, sub-regional, regional and international levels.
¿ To inform NGO and FO about the CGIAR-NGO committee
¿ To discuss an NGO and FO vision on agricultural research in West and Central Africa and to share the one already that has been articulated by researchers.
¿ To discuss and develop with NGO their mandate, their roles and responsibilities vis-à-vis the field of agricultural research.

The conference of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) in Dresden in May 2000 was under the banner of strengthening partnerships in research and development (R&D). Suggestions for various ¿Global Partnership Programmes¿ (GPPs) were discussed in Dresden under four priority themes: 1) Genetic Resource Management and Biotechnology; 2) Natural Resource Management and Agroecology; 3) Commodity Chains / Underutilised Crops; and 4) Policy Management and Institutional Development.

Los productores agrícolas, y especialmente los pequeños productores, desempeñan un papel muy importante en la producción agropecuaria en todo el mundo, sobretodo en los países en desarrollo. Los productores agrícolas desempeñan un papel importante tanto como generadores de tecnología como usuarios de la misma. Por esta razón, ellos constituyen uno de los actores principales del Foro Global de Investigación Agropecuaria (FGIA/GFAR).

2003 will be a crucial year for agricultural negotiations.
August will see the WTO Ministerial Conference in Cancun during which member states will not only spell out their agricultural commitments, but also make trade-offs between sectors, since nothing can be finalised until agreement has been reached on all aspects.