The challenges of providing food security for the developing world have perhaps never been so extreme, with the introduction of new technologies being matched by land degradation, water concerns and the often uncertain impacts of a changing climate. In short, we will need to produce more food on less land. Adding to the problem is the distrust and fear around some new technologies – particularly biotechnologies – that have created a divide between scientists and farmers, decision makers and the public. There have been many attempts to bridge these divides, but few success stories.
This booklet grew out of a study on what makes for responsible scaling in the context of agrifood systems, thinking along the same lines as ideas that gave rise to the concept of responsible research and innovation. In our initial exploration, we brought together a number of angles on the topic area (Wigboldus and Leeuwis, 2013; Wigboldus et al. 2016).
Heat-tolerant wheat varieties, developed by ICARDA and Sudan’s Agricultural Research Corporation (ARC), are helping farmers adapt to the heat stress, however, bringing higher and more stable yields. Farmers across the wheatproducing regions of Sudan are now achieving up to six t/ha over successive growing seasons.
Afghanistan-ICARDA programs have field tested a range of rural development approaches and practices. Many of these are ripe for scaling-up at national level and can contribute to the EU-Afghanistan National Priority Programs (NPP) 2017-2021.
This report from the Korea Center for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (WISET) and PORTIA has been published as a result of the 6th Gender Summit (Seoul, 2015) and aims to help improve efficacy of the measures used to implement the SDGs, including their cross cutting impacts, by identifying that all sources and conditions of inequality in the lives of girls, boys, women, and men.
The purpose of this report is to show how and why scientific understanding of biological and sociocultural (sex-gender) differences between women and men can enhance success of innovation policies that seek to promote socioeconomic advancements through science and technology.
This working paper has been prepared as background for the inclusive agribusiness work stream of the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development’s (GDPRD). The paper outlines the concept of inclusive business and its application to the agri-food sector, maps the current state of play and explores implications for donors and the GDPRD.
In 2012, the Food Systems Innovation (FSI) initiative was set up between four Australian organisations working to improve the impact of agriculture and food security programs in the Indo-Pacific region. The author was assigned to facilitate a stream of work in the partnership, working as an internal partnership broker in one of the four partner organisations, the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
This report is part of the AFRHINET project under the ACP-EU Cooperation Programme in Science and Technology (S&T II). The overall aims of the project are to enhance options for sustainable integration of rainwater harvesting for irrigation through understanding adoption constraints and developing networks for capacity building and technology transfer. The African partners are Addis Ababa University and WaterAid-Ethiopia in Ethiopia, University of Nairobi and ICRAF-Searnet in Kenya, Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique, and University of Zimbabwe and ICRISAT-Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe.
This presentation for the Third Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD3,Johannesburg, South Africa, 5-8 April 2016) illustrates the topic of competitiveness in Africa smallholders system, focusing on the Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) and Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS) concepts and on the role of the innovation platforms.