Like many other patterns, investment in research is often cyclical. International centers like CIMMYT have focused substantial resources on biotic and abiotic stresses for about two decades now, but raising total productivity is also back on the development agenda. There are a number of reasons for this, among them sharp rises in the price of staple foods as well as the manifestation of detrimental effects of climate change on productivity. Those factors threaten not only the livelihoods of resource-poor people but food security at.
