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Distributing Research Attention in Global Agriculture

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Social Justice and Agricultural Innovation

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Abstract

Nowadays market incentives have the strongest influence in the distribution of research attention. In a world of extreme inequality in purchasing power and research capabilities, this outcome has disastrous consequences for social justice. The strong incentives produced by markets divert research attention away from the urgent needs of the poor to some of the most banal cravings of the rich. One way to understand distributive justice is as demanding that fair shares of research attention be allocated in proportion to the urgency of global agricultural problems. Yet obliging people to do a particular type of work amounts to a form of conscription. The aim of this chapter is to deal with the advantages and disadvantages of understanding research attention as a distributive good.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), art. 27.1: “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits”; and the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), art. 15.1 (b): [the right of everyone] “To enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications.”

  2. 2.

    See research and development expenditure (% of GDP), at https://data.worldbank.org/.

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    Cristian Timmermann

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Timmermann, C. (2020). Distributing Research Attention in Global Agriculture. In: Social Justice and Agricultural Innovation. The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics, vol 31. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56193-2_5

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