Ayala Agricultural Development Corporation Ayala and The University of The Philippine at Los Banos -Institute of Plant Breeding (IPB) nurtured a pioneering relationship that lasted for 5 years and that opened the doors of the academy to private sector cooperations and national government support. Today, for instance, the IPB has a regular allocation of national government purchases under certain programs, operates through a system of private contract growers and is supported with increased budget from the Department of Agriculture as well as from royalty earnings in its supply of foundation seeds. The increased cash flow has allowed IPB to expand its research programs and has, in fact, led in the introduction of single cross hybrids in the Philippines.|The situation was not like this in the early 90's when the relationship with Ayala was born. Ayala made its resources available to IPB for the commercialization of its fIrst generation three way cross hybrids. This involved all the activities -multiplication of foundation seeds, hybrid production and processing, all the way to the promotions and distribution of the same. In return, Ayala was given a free hand in the commercialization of these hybrids including a major share of any volumes that national government may need in the future.|Having developed a model for working together, Ayala moved one step further into the area of genetic research. At the time, the financial support the IPB was getting has been to its bottom level and unless a grant of some form was obtained, the research work specifically on corn would terminate. At this time also, Ayala has just commenced its own hybrid corn research program to become The First Filipino Company Amid an all American field of hybrid corn research companies operating in the Philippines; wherefore an alliance with a pool of scientists was necessary.|The cooperation was structured in such a way that Ayala will provide a research grant and IPB will provide the technical expertise. The grant is reviewed every season ending where work progress and budget expenditures are reviewed for the fast season and planned for the next. By the nature of the cooperation, any hybrid discovered was to be treated as a joint property of the parties. Ayala will have the right to commercialize any hybrid discovered for a limited exclusivity period of 10 years. IPB will have the right to use the research findings exclusively for academic purposes during the first 10 year period and on an unlimited basis thereafter.|The relationship, particularly its exclusivity feature, has been questioned by certain parties on various grounds, among which are limitations on academic freedom and limitations in the exploitation of natural resources. The relationship withstood all of these, in fact it grew stronger with budgetary support from government having discovered the root cause of the problem to be financial in nature. More importantly, this engendered a realization ttlat academic pursuits may cross over school campuses and serve a bigger national need which is to improve the level of technology of the country particularly in agriculture where a vast majority of the population draws livelihood.

English

0208|AGRIS 0201|AL-Maize Program|R01PROCE

Juan Carlos Mendieta

CIMMYT Publications Collection