interest groups will have to lobby for this increased funding. This suggests that policy makers and advocates for AKST activities that increase environmental sustainability, achieve economically sustainable development, improve nutrition and health, and reduce poverty, should attempt to put to­gether an AKST investment portfolio that attracts groups beyond the traditional agricultural community. The invest­ment areas listed above, which can meet multiple criteria, could be attractive to these different groups. As indicated above, many AKST investments can meet multiple goals. Other investments primarily meet one goal but still play a valuable role and should not be eliminated because they do not make major contributions to all of the goals. For example, private research to increase poultry productivity may create increased pollution, but this does not mean that governments should try to prevent private poultry research. A more appropriate approach may be to encourage the pri­vate sector to do productivity-enhancing research but at the same time prevent the potential pollution through more ef­fective enforcement of laws against pollution, by mandat­ing waste management plans or by public sector research to development management systems which reduce pollution and improved public health.
         One strategy is to make small public investments in an enabling policy environmental that would encourage private research and shift public research into the produc­tion of public goods and meeting other social goals such as improving the environment or developing technology for resource poor farmers or into basic research. For example, many countries could reduce their public research invest­ments on improving the productivity hybrid maize, which will be done by the private sector, and shift those resources into productivity-enhancing research on cassava or open pollinated varieties of maize grown by poor people. Or the resources could be shifted into fertilizer and pest manage­ment to reduce overuse of chemicals that create pollution and can harm human health. Shifting more public AKST investments to increase the productivity and adoption of or­ganic agriculture for which markets are available can also reduce the use of nonorganic pesticides and chemical fertil­izers.

8.4.3 Future AKST investment levels and priorities

8.4.3.1 Levels of AKST investments
More government funding and better targeted government investments in AKST in developing countries can make major contributions to meeting development goals. The evidence of returns to AKST investments shows that pub­lic investments have high payoffs, in the order of 40-50% and can reduce poverty (see 8.2.4 and 8.2.8). These returns are high compared to other public sector investments and evidence shows that AKST investments are one of the most effective ways to reduce poverty. In addition, public invest­ments in AKST can be used to reduce agriculture's contri­bution to global warming and to improve public health. However, to do this public investments must be targeted using evidence other than the ROR, which usually do not include environmental and human health impacts, positive or negative, or the distribution of costs and benefits among different groups.

          Increasing investments in agricultural research, inno­vation, and diffusion of technology by for-profit firms can also make major contributions to meeting development and sustainability goals. Private firms both large and small have been and in the future will continue to be major suppliers of inputs and innovations to both commercial and subsis­tence farmers. They will not provide public goods or sup­ply goods and services for which there is no market; but evidence shows that there are spillovers from private sup­pliers of technology to farmers and consumers. However, private research intensity in developing countries is only one hundredth of the corresponding ratio in industrialized coun­tries. To make the best use of private investments in AKST, governments must provide both government regulations to guard against negative externalities and monopolistic be­havior and support good environmental practices providing firms with incentives to invest in AKST
.
8.4.3.2 Allocation of AKST resources
Social science research to assist priority-setting, to measure the impact of past AKST investments in health and the envi­ronment, to improve AKST and complementary institutions and policies, and to link with indigenous knowledge is a high priority investment. One of the major constraints of this assessment is the lack of evidence on both the positive and negative impact of AKST on the environment, human health, and, to a lesser extent, on poverty reduction (see 8.2.5, 8.2.6, 8.2.8). Investments are needed to develop bet­ter methodologies and indicators to measure these impacts, both with monetary and nonmonetary values. In addition, investments are needed to develop better methods for mea­suring the contributions of indigenous knowledge, social science research on institutions and policies, the value of improving governance systems, and better priority-setting tools and methods. Finally more investments are needed in research priority setting processes in developing countries which include both social and natural scientists and input from stakeholders (see 8.4.1).
          AKST investments that can increase the productivity of agriculture and improve the existing traditional systems of agriculture and aquaculture in order to conserve scarce re­sources such as land, water and biodiversity remains a high priority. The major resource constraint on increasing agri­cultural production in the future will continue to be agricul­tural land. AKST must focus on increasing output per unit of land through technology and management practices.
        AKST investment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide other ecosystem services is another priority in­vestment area. Agriculture and land use contribute 32% of total GHG emissions (Stern, 2007). Thus, AKST investments to develop policies, technologies and management strategies that reduce agriculture's contribution could facilitate to de­creasing global warming. This requires the development of new farming systems, which use fewer technologies, pro­duces less GHG, and builds on indigenous knowledge to improve current cropping systems to be more sustainable. These systems could include practices such as no-tillage sys­tems, integrated pest management strategies, integrated soil management technologies, rotational grazing and support of mixed farming systems to improve the nutrient cycling. A second, complementary type of AKST activity is the de-