The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture Intensification (CoSAI) and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) jointly commissioned a gap study to determine how far away innovation investment is from helping agri-food systems achieve zero hunger goals and the Paris Agreement while reducing impacts on water resources in the Global South. The results show that the world can come much closer with some well-placed investments.
During May 2010 the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) hosted two events related to knowledge management (KM): The Knowledge Share Fair for Latin America and the Caribbean, funded by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and a regional meeting of the Knowledge Management for Development (KM4Dev) community. The Fair was attended by 200 professionals from more than 70 organizations and 18 countries and showcased more than 40 experiences related to KM in agriculture, development and food security.
Many small-scale irrigation systems are characterized by low yields and deteriorating infrastructure. Interventions often erroneously focus on increasing yields and rehabilitating infrastructure. Small-scale irrigation systems have many of the characteristics of complex socio-ecological systems, with many different actors and numerous interconnected subsystems. However, the limited interaction between the different subsystems and their agents prevents learning and the emergence of more beneficial outcomes.
A huge increase in investment in innovation for agricultural systems is critical to meet the Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Climate Agreement. Most of this increase needs to come from reorienting existing funding for innovation. However, understanding whether an investment will fully promote environmentally sustainable and equitable agri-food systems can be difficult.
Agriculture is crucial for the livelihood of millions of people worldwide and is one of the main drivers of deforestation, biodiversity loss and resource degradation. The contribution of agriculture to these environmental problems has been exacerbated by subsidies, which constitute the dominant public policy to support farmers. At the same time, other economic instruments introducing more sustainable land-use practices and incentivizing better environmental and social outcomes are already being applied worldwide.
The study was designed to answer the following three key questions:
(1) What types of investment instruments have been tested to support innovation in agri-food systems in the Global South, and how can these be categorized into a working typology?
(2) What is the evidence on how well different instruments have supported SAI's multiple objectives (e.g. social equality and environmental) at scale and what contextual and design factors affect their success or failure in achieving these objectives (e.g. type of value chain, who participates)?
What are the patterns of funding in agricultural innovation for the Global South1 ? Who are the key funders in this innovation and who are the key recipients? How doesthis funding split between various topics and value chains? What proportion of these funds support Sustainable Agricultural Intensification (SAI)? And how is SAI innovation funding split across different parts of the agriculture sector funding and innovation canvas?
Cities are highly visible centers of mass consumption of food and vast excretion of waste; they are less often associated with the production of food. Yet closer observation of cities in the Global South reveals that they are also locations of food production. This report describes the major challenges affecting crop cultivation and animal raising as well as food consumption in and around cities, where many households are poorly fed, negatively affected by unsustainable urbanization processes, and threatened with a warming and disease-prone world.
Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) is the production of plants, fish, insects, or animals inside structures such as greenhouses, vertical farms, and growth chambers, in which environmental parameters such as humidity, light, temperature and CO2 can be controlled to create optimal growing conditions.
A huge increase in investment for innovation in sustainable agri-food systems (SAS) will be critical for meeting the objectives of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement.