The Philippines should at once double its budget for research and development (R&D) to P6 billion if it is committed to boost farmers' income, agricultural productivity, and national farm production.

Dr. William D. Dar, director general of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), said commercial agricultural practices should be backed up heavily by research in order to sustain over the long haul initial gains in farm technology.

"We need to be oriented on a science for development paradigm. It can't be science for science's sake only. The budget has been P2.7 billion for sometime. If we're serious in making investments in what counts, we should double this right away to P6 billion. You can compare that countries that invest in R&D are growing by leaps and bounds," said Dar in an interview.

There is admonition though on this: That increased budget should be channeled to key priority areas where the Philippines could have a niche in. And that budget shouldn't be spread too thinly on a broad spectrum.

ICRISAT, based in India, has been helping the Philippines adopt a technology on sweet sorghum-fed ethanol even as Rusni Distillery's owner A. R. Palaniswamy is set to visit the Philippines next month to look into a negotiation on a possible licensing of the technology here.

Dar, who has been able to raise ICRISAT's budget from just $ 22 million in 2000 (when ICRISAT was a fledgling institution) to $ 31 million in 2006, has himself contributed to India's raising its budget for R&D even as ICRISAT's Science Park and Incubation Center are supported by the Indian government.

In the Philippines, Ayala Foundation is looking at putting up a similar Science Park as that situated in ICRISAT's 1,400-hectare property in Patacheru, Andhra Pradesh since Ayala Foundation has already been incubating technologies although these are more focused on Information Technology.