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.
If you are a research or innovation manager or a funder of innovation in the agrifood sector, in the private or public sphere, these Principles are for you. Investment in research and innovation today will shape the agrifood systems of the future. The choices that you make during an innovation process will affect the future benefits and drawbacks of the innovations you help to create: for example, what types of people gain and lose, and what the effects are on the environment. Too often, these choices are not made consciously, and important issues are overlooked until it is too late.
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.
Brazil has transformed from being a net food importer, to one of the largest agricultural exporters in the world. The country is now one of the top global funders of agricultural innovation, with a special emphasis on funding R&D for sustainable agriculture. While food insecurity and environmental challenges exist in many parts of Brazil, social programs and funding in innovation have helped those in need.
The CGIAR is the leading global agriculture research institution working towards creating sustainable agricultural practices a reality through research and innovation. The CGIAR 2030
To meet the growing demand for food in the Global South in a sustainable manner, current funding in agricultural innovation will need to be increased exponentially. Some estimates suggest up to USD 320 billion annually is required to help meet the UN SDG Goals for food and agriculture by 2030. Current levels of funding for agriculture and agricultural innovation fall far short of this and hence efforts to induce more funding for these goals, including through the use of new financing instruments1, is critical going forward.
The only specialized multilateral development institution focused exclusively on rural development, IFAD has successfully used agriculture as a means of poverty reduction – contributing ~USD 22 billion in funding to date1. About 90% of IFAD's portfolio is focused on Low to Middle Income (LMI) countries. IFAD stands out with its nutrition and gender-sensitive lenses coupled with investments in climate-resilient agriculture – mainstreaming nutrition, gender, and climate change work in agriculture.
This paper has been presented at the Fifth International Seminar on Dynamics of Farmer Managed Irrigation Systems: Socio-Institutional, Economic and Technical Context, Kathmandu, Nepal, 25-26 March 2010, organized by Farmer Managed Irrigation System Trust. International Water Management Institute, the then International Irrigation Management Institute (IWMI) began its activities in Nepal since 1986 with a Memorandum of Understanding with His Majesty's Government of Nepal, now the Government of Nepal.
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) partnered with the Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions (APAARI) in 2011 to conduct a series of policy dialogues on the prioritization of demand-driven agricultural research for development in South Asia. Dialogues were conducted with a wide range of stakeholders in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal in mid-2012 and this report captures feedback from those dialogues.