By Susan Onyango
Originally posted here.
Africa’s population is expected to double from 1.26 billion today to over two and half billion by 2050, little more than 30 years from now. At the same time, land degradation, loss of biodiversity and the effects of climate change pose increasing challenges to the continent’s agriculture sector, particularly smallholder farmers. If left unchecked, these challenges will threaten the food security of millions of people, particularly in the drylands. Affected countries will require national policies and farmer practices that safeguard food production, as well as frameworks for mutual cooperation across the agricultural and environmental sectors, if they are to ensure the sustainability and resilience required to feed their people.
In an effort to address these multiple challenges, more than 80 government and development sector experts met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 5 July 2017, to launch the Integrated Approach Programme on Fostering Sustainability and Resilience for Food Security in sub-Saharan Africa. Financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the 5-year, USD 116 million programme is designed to promote sustainability and resilience among small holder farmers through the sustainable management of natural resources – land, water, soils and genetic resources – that are crucial for food and nutrition security. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is the lead agency with the Programme Coordination Unit hosted by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) at their headquarters in Nairobi. Bioversity International, UN Environment, UNDP, FAO, World Bank, UNIDO, AGRA and Conservation International are all involved.
Smallholder farmers, who are responsible for most of the region’s food production, will benefit from practices and policies that will ensure the long-term sustainability and resilience of their production systems. Efforts to ensure post-programme sustainability include a particular focus on gender issues at every level of the programme to address policy and culturally-related barriers to gender equity and women’s empowerment in most of the participating countries. The Programme targets almost three million households in 12 countries and will improve the management of 10 million hectares of land.
“With an explicit focus on smallholder agriculture in the drylands, we have collectively established a framework to underpin the long-term sustainability and resilience of production systems,” said Dr. Mohamed Bakarr, Lead Environment Specialist at the GEF. “The program framework, which is defined by three main components – platforms for multi-stakeholder engagement, acting to scale-up innovations, and systems monitoring and assessment – is informed by sound science and policy, including a theory of change.”
The Programme includes the increased involvement of the private sector in developing viable value chains for food crops. At the same time, a regional hub that will support, synthesize and promote learning across the network of countries will improve access to knowledge from scientific institutions and help inform policy options and investment opportunities for managing ecosystem services in smallholder agriculture.
Margarita Astralaga, Director of IFAD’s Environment and Climate Division reiterated the importance of linking food production with ecosystems to protect the environment and to ensure that smallholder farmers reach markets.
“A key ingredient to the Food Security Integrated Approach Programme is the learning across the twelve country projects as well as its three components on institutional frameworks and policy, scaling-up integrated approaches, and on measuring collective impacts,” she noted.
To ensure effective implementation of the project, participants called for system-wide stakeholder engagement – from the field to the government – and the mapping of existing and previous projects to enable south-south learning. They also emphasized the need for technical support on improving stakeholder engagement, capacity development, strengthening institutions, monitoring systems, combining research and technology, scaling technologies, and communicating among stakeholders in participating countries and globally.
“The process has been very engaging, giving us insight for those who haven’t started on implementation (and) alignment with regional programmes, especially indicators and information on national and regional goals,” said Shamiso Nandi Najira of Malawi’s Ministry of Environment. “We look forward to working with the implementation agencies. Learning from others on what they are doing in their countries has been a good eye opener.”
“Taking resilient food security to scale means supporting innovation among millions of farmers over millions of hectares,” said Fergus Sinclair of the World Agroforestry Centre. “We have to go beyond simply promoting best bets, to supporting farmers as they experiment with new options in their own contexts, and then foster the sharing of that learning about what works where and for whom.”
The Food Security Integrated Approach Programme is aligned to the Sustainable Development Goals and the three Rio Conventions on biological diversity (CBD), to combat desertification (UNCCD) and on climate change (UNFCCC). It will be implemented in 12 countries including Burkina Faso, Burundi, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Swaziland, Tanzania and Uganda.
Other Integrated Approach Programmes of the GEF are on Green Commodities Supply Chains and Sustainable Cities.
Also see:
GEF Integrated Approach Pilot: Fostering Sustainability and Resilience for Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa
IFAD Director presenting the Integrated Approach Pilot (IAP)
Showing posts with label bioversity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bioversity. Show all posts
GEF-funded programme on resilient food security targets smallholder farmers in 12 African countries
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
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Women and agricultural biodiversity – from the seed to the table
Friday, September 25, 2015
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By Maria Hartl, Senior Technical Specialist - Gender and Social Equity
EXPO Milan has definitely given us the space to talk – with a calendar of occasions for exchange about topics that often do not make it into the headlines, including for example the core mandates of the Rome-based agencies and their collaboration.
The round-table was skillfully moderated by Barbara Serra, news presenter and correspondent for Al Jazeera English. It brought together many key players on gender and biodiversity, including representatives from FAO, IFAD, Oxfam Novib, to Slow Food, Fair Trade and the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSFR) in India.
In fact, to me it felt like the extended IFAD family. It was certainly not a coincidence that many of the programmes that were presented kicked off with IFAD grant support. It was a great opportunity to learn about long-term results and impact. And it was really gratifying to see that all the programmes integrated a gender perspective and contributed to women’s empowerment, in particular for indigenous women.
Ann Tutweiler (Director General, Bioversity International) and Stefano Padulosi (Theme Leader, Marketing Diversity, Bioversity International) spoke about the result of years of research on neglected and underutilized species (NUS), which started with IFAD grant support. They had also invited Sebastiana Choque, a custodian farmer from Bolivia, to give a testimonial about her management of many varieties of native potatoes, cañihua, oca and barley. Choque also spoke about the important work she has been doing in support of the Bolivian National Agricultural and Forestry Research Institute in its cañihua germplasm collection.
“Putting Lessons into Practice: Scaling up People’s Biodiversity Management for Food Security” is an Oxfam Novib programme in Peru, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe supported by IFAD. According to Gigi Manicad (Senior Programme Manager, Oxfam Novib), more than the 60 per cent of the participants were indigenous women who were actively engaged in seed management and in participatory varietal selection and breeding. (To find out more about this, take a look at the women’s video diaries, where indigenous women speak for themselves)
In 2014, the programme expanded into eight countries, using the innovative Farmer Field Schools method to preserve the seeds of neglected and under-utilised species that are a priority for women and food and nutrition security.
Oxfam Novib has submitted a report on the programme to the upcoming Sixth Session of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture with recommendations on farmers’ rights and inclusion of women.
Another joint IFAD-Biodiversity International project was introduced by E.D. Israel Oliver King, the principal scientist at the MSSFR (India) and coordinator of a programme strengthening the resilience of poor rural communities in the face of food insecurity, poverty and climate change through on-farm conservation of local agricultural biodiversity. He was accompanied by Malliga Seerangan, a recognized custodian farmer and Jaya Eswaran, representative of a women’s self-help group, who described their involvement in varietal selection, community seed banks and value addition.
In my presentation, I put the spotlight on IFAD’s support to indigenous peoples, in particular women and their holistic approach to biodiversity. The link between biodiversity conservation and empowering rural people to improve their lives and strengthen their resilience is a leitmotiv for grant and loan-financed operations, leading to better nutrition and food security, and increased income and economic empowerment. Women are a key link in the chain that starts with seed selection and preservation and ends with putting nutritious food on the table.
In the discussion that followed, one participant asked about the collaboration between the many organizations present. There are indeed so many ongoing partnerships, often invisible to the public eye. As Ann Tutweiler (Bioversity International) replied, a diagram showing all the different partnerships and collaborations among the organizations present in the room would consist of hundreds of lines running from one organization to the other.
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Do gender dynamics in agricultural development contribute to nutrition?
Friday, December 19, 2014
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by Marian Amaka Odenigbo
You will all agree that it still unacceptable that today one in eight women and men still go to bed hungry and 8,000 children die daily from under nutrition despite the growing attention on gender and nutrition related issues in the agricultural development agenda. As development practitioners we seek to address issues such as:
- How do gender dynamics and decision-making relate to nutrition-sensitive behavior and outcomes in agricultural development programmes?
- What is the impact of empowerment on nutrition sensitive agriculture programmes?
- Does Decision Making always leads to Empowerment? and
- How can we continuously and systematically track impact of gender participation in agricultural development on nutrition?
What is paradoxical is that we actually know that gender dynamics often are closely linked to nutrition, but we don’t necessarily always know how!
These concerns were the focus of a two and half day training workshop on gender and nutrition organized by the CGIAR cross-cutting research program (CRP) on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH). The event took place at Bioversity headquarters in Rome, Italy on 2-4 December 2014. Participants from different sectors shared experiences on designing, implementing, and evaluating gender research analyzing how development activities have contributed to improved nutritional outcomes. I was happy to be invited in the capacity of one of the key partners who is working on implementing nutrition-sensitive agricultural projects.
Women's empowerment
Women's empowerment has been portrayed as a driver in agricultural development and innovation especially in poor rural setting. This is reflected in IFAD’s core business of investing in rural poor with an estimate of approximately 50 per cent of women targeted in our operations.
Empowering women involves multiple aspects such as decision-making power related to income, time, labor, assets, and knowledge or preferences of female community members. This implies women taking control over their lives, setting their agenda, gaining skills, self-confidence, self-reliance.
Hazel Malapit, the coordinator of A4NH gender strategy in IFPRI, gave an overview of the Women's Empowerment in the Agriculture Index (WEAI). WEAI is an index dedicated to measuring women’s empowerment in the agricultural sector. Laurie Starr (TANGO International) and Ana Paula de la O Campos (FAO) shared experiences in using and adapting WEAI were shared in project contexts. Beatrice Gerli, a member of IFAD gender team also added that IFAD has developed an adaption of the WEAI in its work and piloted it in Guatemala.
To understand the intricacy of women's empowerment Peter Davis, a specialist in qualitative and mixed-methods research delivered a presentation on empowerment ‘as a complex topic’.
Pathways to Nutrition
These pathways were grouped into three key routes: 1) Food pro¬duction; which affects food availability, access and consumption of diverse foods and food consumption at household level; 2) Agricultural income; which influences expenditure on food, healthcare and non-food items; and 3) Women’s empowerment; which influences decision making power, caring capacity and practices, control of income and female energy expenditure.
Although these pathways are not always linear but they have become important guides for designing research and nutrition-sensitive agriculture projects. The last 3 pathways (5, 6 & 7) explicitly deal with women, but the gender role is important in each of the pathways outlined below:
As a matter of fact, empirical evidence suggests that empowering women improves nutrition for mothers, their children, and other household members and there is a close linkage between child stunting and maternal nutrition.
From a nutrition perceptive, the decision making process was viewed not just an outcome but rather underscoring the importance of joint-decision making between women and men.
Participants engaged in a brainstorming session on coming up with decision-making indicators to enhance their understanding of gender dynamic roles in agricultural interventions for nutrition and health.
Jessica Raneri, a nutrition specialist in Bioversity talked about adapting existing methodologies with a nutrition lens, thus ensuring nutrition-sensitive interventions. She proposed that we reformulate existing questions and/or integrate additional questions on nutrition from a gender perspective to address gap in current methodology.
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| Gender norms integration (pink) into a vegetable and fruit project (green) in Zambia presented by Mwansa’s (Nutrition officer) and Steve (Gender officer) |
It was quite interesting to see how gender mainstreaming can improve nutritional outcomes in Ag4NH programmes. While at the same time implementing agricultural development projects through a nutrition lens maximizes the gender norms.
This was reinforced by an exclamation made by Mwansa at the end of an interactive brainstorming exercise – please see the figure above:
“Wow! Now it’s all making a whole lot of sense, Steve!!!
To wrap up the workshop, participants were tasked to identify available and missing resources to improve work on nutrition and gender. One of the challenges identified was creating a space to continue networking opportunities to link up gender and nutrition. As a way forward, participants suggested to build a community of practice on gender and nutrition in order to continue the conversation.
This training workshop actually confirmed that integrating gender norms through a nutrition lens will increase development impact and nutritional outcomes of programmes. It was an opportunity to further our understanding of influential gender dynamics in nutrition sensitive agriculture interventions particularly for partners like IFAD where gender and nutrition are among our thematic corporate priorities.
Interested in IFAD’s commitment to making its country programmes and projects nutrition- sensitive? Read our blogpost on Optimizing farmer’s contribution through better health and nutrition.
At a seminar with researchers from Bioversity International
and IFAD staff on Monday, it was clear that supporting biodiversity in crop
systems is an issue that resonates with IFAD’s work. Indeed, greater diversity
of crops improves community resilience and contributes towards better food and
nutrition security. However, as was noted several times, biodiversity often lacks
an explicit focus in our projects and programmes.
Bioversity International has published that only 12 food
crops, together with 5 animal species provide over 75% of the world’s food
today. This tendency by governments to favour efficiency and productivity is endangering
our heritage of agricultural and forest biodiversity that farmers have
practiced for centuries.
In response, Bioversity International has come up with the
seeds for needs approach– a rapid means of identifying crop varieties that are
locally adapted to climate and market conditions. The process involves
agricultural trials with different seed varieties and subsequent analysis of
farmers’ preferences. By making use of CGIAR and institutional genebanks, Bioversity
can customize seeds and distribute to community seedbanks based on farmer
demand.
But the remarkable aspect of this approach is that the seed
system is entirely open source. This means that there are no individual rights
holders for the varieties they distribute, instead, the seeds are openly
accessible to everyone.
“The biodiversity that we’re offering is in the public
domain, open access, and therefore easy to work with, multiply, and move around
as farmers identify seeds as being important to their use,” said Stephan Weise,
Deputy Director General of Bioversity.
From both a food security and a sustainability perspective,
this seems to make a lot of sense. However, in the many cases where government
subsidies incentivize staple crops such as rice, maize and wheat, Bioversity’s
approach actually represents a vast departure from the norm.
I asked Weise how he reacts to such policy barriers: “Policies
can change if you provide the right evidence and link it to an engagement
effort that allows them to be adjusted.”
“If we do not show that there is value in doing something
differently, then policies are not going to change,” he added.
The production of minor millets in India is a case in point.
These are small-seeded crops grown for food and fodder, which are rich in vitamins
and nutrients. Despite the crop’s neglected status, Bioversity provided
extension services to improve planting techniques and helped select higher
quality seed varieties. As a result,
Indian small millet growers increased their yields by 70% and their income by
30%, all in a rural setting that is dominated by rice production.
by Rima Alcadi and Shantanu Mathur
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| picture: R.Alcadi/IFAD. FFS in Goromonzi, Zimbabwe |
We are all increasingly dependent
on agro-biodiversity, as we struggle to adapt to the impending impacts of climate
change. This is because there are varieties that have adapted to and thrived in
harsh and marginal conditions and these are becoming more and more relevant as
conditions become even harsher. For many poor rural communities, the
conservation and sustainable use of their local landraces determines whether or
not they are food secure: maintaining biodiversity is a way to enhance their
resilience. In development projects implemented in various countries, including
in Asia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, farmers have clearly demonstrated
that they care about their agro-biodiversity. For example, farmers in Zimbabwe
maintain over a dozen varieties of the same crop. They do not do so in order to
increase yields, necessarily. One reason they grow different varieties is to
create farming system stability - to manage risks, such as pest and disease
infestations, droughts and other environmental shocks. A second reason is to
manage their factors of production and their cash flow, which basically means
that smallholder farmers prefer to stagger the amount of labour, irrigation and
other inputs required, so that it is easier for them to manage without having
to revert to hiring or purchasing additional resources. Farmers are mindful of
the amount of wood required for cooking or processing their crops, and they
value regularity and predictability in
their cash flow, so varieties with different maturity dates are used as
mixtures – making them productive even in lean periods (the so called hungry
season) and creating vibrant food systems making them a perpetual and reliable
source of health and nutrition. And of course, many smallholder farmers value
diversity of use as well – some varieties are best for sweets, others for
savoury foods, snacks, fodder, brewing - and thus the colour, texture, cooking
time and even cooling time can be important traits that are considered in
selecting which crops to grow.
The fact that, globally, an
estimated 75% of our plant genetic diversity has been lost since the 1900s is a
matter of great concern. Moreover, the consequences of biodiversity loss are
not being shared equitably across the world. The areas of richest biodiversity
are in developing countries where they are relied upon by approximately 2 billion
people to meet their basic needs. When farmers abandon their multiple local
varieties and landraces for genetically uniform and high-yielding varieties, in
the long-term they are jeopardising their resilience to climate change, food security
and traditional knowledge associated with their local varieties. After even
only a few seasons of neglect or drought, it can become an enormous challenge
for smallholder farmers residing in marginalised areas to access good quality
seeds, on time.
Community seed fairs were conceived
and promoted by a partnership among IFAD, FAO, Bioversity International and
civil society organisations in Zimbabwe and Mali. In community seed fairs, several
farmers meet to display their seeds, provide
farmers with the opportunity to exchange seeds as well as knowledge and
experiences on the crops they grow. It is also a valuable tool for researchers
to take stock of available biodiversity in a given community, and even collect
varieties to conserve in the national gene banks – thereby ensuring that if the
communities lose a variety, it can be recovered. Seed fairs also celebrate,
recognise and reward farmers for their valuable contribution as custodians of
agro-biodiversity. Often prizes, such as agricultural implements, are awarded
to farmers who display the widest range of varieties, or bring rare varieties. Moreover,
community seed fairs are an ideal platform on which to append other activities
that can further enhance communities’ ability to improve food security and
their adaptation to climate change. One of these activities is the Diversity
Wheel.
The idea of the Diversity Wheel came
from the “4 cell analysis,” a conceptual
framework developed initially by the Nepalese NGO Local Initiatives for Biodiversity,
Research and Development (LI-BIRD), and Bioversity International. The method
was conceived to assess, in a participatory way, the amount of crop diversity
available in a community and identify varieties
that might be at risk of being lost. In a way, this is similar to the IUCN Red
Lists, but specifically looking at cultivated species and at maintaining local agro-biodiversity
on-farm. In this regard, the 4 cell analysis was conceived as a 2 by 2 matrix,
where one axis refers to the number of farmers planting a specified variety
(i.e., few farmers versus many farmers) and the other axis refers to the area
in which the crop is grown (large area versus small area). This conceptual
framework was further developed into a “5 cell analysis” as a 5th cell,
referring to varieties that a community lost, was added to the existing tool in
2011, during an international conference organized by Bioversity in Germany and
dedicated to neglected and underutilized species[1].
Because most traditional crops are scarcely represented in ex situ gene banks, this
framework is very useful to monitor their level of genetic erosion and prevent
their possible loss. Moreover, although seeds of certain varieties may be available
at a global scale, this does not necessarily mean that these seeds are accessible
to smallholder farmers in remote and marginalised communities. So communities
need a preventive approach to conserving their agro-biodiversity.
How does this work in practice? The
Zimbabwean civil society organization Community Technology Development Trust
(CTDT) collaborates with LI-BIRD and the two organizations exchange ideas on
promoting sustainable use and conservation of local agro-biodiversity for rural
development. Thanks to this collaboration, in Zimbabwe, CTDT is implementing the
5 cell analysis in the form of a “Diversity Wheels” - as an activity embedded
into Community Seed Fairs in the poverty stricken districts of Tsholotsho,
Uzumba Maramba Pfungwe (UMP), Goromonzi and Chiredzi. This is a great strategy
because several proud farmers participate in the seed fairs and they have a
strong incentive to bring along their entire portfolio of seeds, in order to
win the seed fair competition. The seed
varieties are selected from those displayed at the community seed fair. A
facilitator then picks up one seed variety and asks the farmers: “How many of
you are growing this variety?” and “Is this variety grown in a large area of
land?” The community would then decide
in which segment of the Diversity Wheel the selected variety should be placed.
In this exercise, farmers also discuss why certain varieties are not being
grown any longer, or why they value a specific variety. They discuss whether
the variety is important to them and, if it is important and it is at risk, then
they reflect on how to proactively
ensure its conservation. Very valuable information on how farmers are
coping with climate change also emerge from these discussions. For example,
farmers in UMP highlighted that they are growing less of the traditional rice
varieties and Bambara ground nut because the growing seasons are becoming
shorter. In fact, they expect their traditional rice variety to disappear if
current rainfall patterns persist. With regard to the white groundnut variety,
7 out of the 10 farmers who were growing this crop lost it as a result of
drought. In addition to climate change
considerations, market demand and resistance to pests and diseases also play an
important role in farmers’ decisions on whether to grow a crop or not: farmers grow
groundnuts because there is high demand; pearl millet is attacked by birds and
they prefer the low yielding but “bearded” variety, which fends birds off by
pricking them. A major issue that also emerged during the Diversity Wheel
exercise is naming of the varieties:
modern varieties are not given local names whereas young people are not
aware of certain traditional varieties that are gradually eroding and do not
feature in formal taxonomy and characterisation exercises either.
Once the Diversity Wheel is fully
populated, farmers can easily visualise how their food security and diet
composition is evolving – are they growing only carbohydrates? Do the varieties
they are growing have different maturity dates? Are there opportunities to
learn agronomic practices from farmers who have been able to grow certain crops
that have failed in other farmers’ fields?
Of course, the Diversity Wheel is very useful tool for communities to
proactively manage their biodiversity for greater food security, adaptation to
climate change and to promote learning – kudos to LI-BIRD, Bioversity
International that have conceptualised it, to CTDT, Agritex and Zimbabwean
farmers who have so ably put it into practice, and to Oxfam Novib and the
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) for the support and funding.
However, the story is a broader one – it is one of partnerships for a clear
common goal, where good ideas build onto each other and are viral and travel
across continents, and it is an example of a tool designed in such a way that
the farmers are clearly on the driver’s seat.
By Emile A. Frison, Julia Marton-Lefèvre and Kanayo F. Nwanze
Conserving biodiversity makes nutritional, ecological and economic sense. Targeted development projects can leverage these benefits to reduce hunger and poverty. For example, ancient grains high in quality proteins and rich in micronutrients such as quinoa and finger millets have been grown for generations, but in some places farmers were struggling to conserve and use these grains because there were limited markets. From 2001 to 2010, an international effort supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and coordinated by Bioversity International in Bolivia, Peru and India helped to enhance the sustainable conservation and use of such underutilized species, in order to unlock their potential value for income generation and nutrition.
Bioversity International and its national and local partners researched high-yielding Andean grain varieties, reintroduced lost species, ensured a wide diversity of genetic resources were preserved in seed banks, and introduced technologies to process grains for markets. The result was not only improved livelihoods but enhancement of cultural identity for communities.
When farmers are linked to value chains, they can reach markets for these primary grains, which are transformed into processed foods that are highly in demand. Rural people living in poverty are important custodians of biodiversity and have found ingenious ways of utilizing it sustainably. When they achieve higher incomes through these activities it creates an incentive to conserve biodiversity sustainably.
In Uganda, the forest-dwelling Benet people have been deriving their livelihoods from the forested landscape of Mount Elgon for hundreds of years. In 1983 the Ugandan Government declared Mount Elgon a National Park, evicted the Benet communities and resettled them outside the forest. The park subsequently experienced land degradation, while communities that had looked after the Park’s natural resources for generations suffered from marginalization and increasing poverty.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) worked with the government, local communities and district authorities to realize a new vision for the Mount Elgon area, which included better-defined use and access rights for communities within the national park. After this new model replaced the exclusionary approach, harvesting of wild resources for food helped diversify and improve local diets. It also benefited Park management, with an 80% reduction in incidences of illegal timber extraction. In the buffer zone around the Park, IUCN helped communities apply their own by-laws to improve land-use decision-making. Communities elected to stop open access herding of cattle, which enabled simple but effective soil conservation techniques to be applied.
The preliminary results demonstrate that local communities have increased their incomes by more than 100% through collection and marketing of wild honey, a two-fold increase in milk production and vegetable gardening, and harvesting of two (rather than one) agriculture crops per season from the rich volcanic soils.
There are many other examples of farmers, scientists and policy-makers working together to re-establish traditional land management regimes where agriculture and conservation practices co-exist and complement each other. This can improve productivity, reduce fossil energy dependency, increase efficiency in plant nutrient utilization, improve water management, and contain the use of pesticides and fertilizers.
These positive examples demonstrate that it is time to take a landscape perspective on agriculture and natural resources: a more pragmatic approach involving community-based natural resource management, strong partnerships and flexibility.
In 2012, the IUCN World Conservation Congress delivered a ‘Call to Action for Agriculture and Conservation to Work Together.’ The conservation and agriculture sectors will need to collaborate if we are to find long-term sustainable solutions to food and nutrition security and preservation of biodiversity. We need commitment from partners and funders to a common vision, and decision-makers need to rethink policies separating the two agendas.
The major actors in conservation and agriculture are recognizing the critical contribution that biodiversity makes to human livelihoods, food and nutrition. However, we need a deeper understanding of how social, ecological, commercial and financial sectors, as well as cultural movements, can mobilize biodiversity’s contribution to food security and poverty reduction, particularly in view of climate change threats. Biodiversity can be both safeguarded and put to use within a sustainable and resilient agriculture that meets multiple needs: food production, environmental restoration and preservation, and improved livelihood for rural people.
The momentum for a new agricultural paradigm began at the 2012 IUCN World Conservation Congress where Bioversity and The Christensen Fund co-organized a plenary panel discussion and workshop facilitated by Ken Wilson from the Christensen Fund. This workshop ‘From Competition to Collaboration between Agriculture and Conservation’ was the impetus for partnerships that are continuing this effort.
Bioversity International, IFAD and IUCN are coming together with thought leaders in agriculture, conservation, public entities and industry to support a new paradigm in agriculture and sustainable development. Through CGIAR research programs, Bioversity is developing a research model of agriculture with smallholder farmers and partners that maximizes agricultural sustainability, productivity and conservation objectives, emphasizing the bridge between agriculture and conservation with biodiversity as a key link.
Our common vision is a global agricultural system that meets the challenge of transforming food systems while building resilience to climate change. This is especially vital for the regions of the world where large rural populations living in poverty rely on agriculture and ecosystems for their livelihoods.
Cross-sectoral cooperation will be vital to addressing shared global challenges now and in the future, including within the context of the post-2015 development agenda. We need to work together to ensure that biodiversity is recognized as key to tackling major issues such as food and nutrition security, climate change, human health, and poverty. Learn more about the Agriculture and Conservation Initiative.
Emile A. Frison is Director General of Bioversity International, Julia Marton-Lefèvre is Director General of IUCN, and Kanayo F. Nwanze is President of IFAD.
Originally posted by Thomas Reuters
Engaging the private sector: how do we promote inclusive growth and connect smallholder farmers to markets?
Thursday, May 2, 2013
1 comments
by Rima Alcadi
By 2050, the world will host more than 9 billion people. Developing countries’ agricultural production will need to increase by 60 per cent in order to adjust to this burgeoning population – which will in turn require an estimated net annual investment of US$83 billion. Of course, these investments must be sensitive to the sustainability and resilience of agriculture and food systems as well as support agriculture as a key driver of economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction. With this in mind, it is clear that in pursuing rural development, partnerships are essential - and partners need to appreciate the critical role and the interests of smallholder farmers.
On the 30th of April 2013, IFAD organized a roundtable discussion to identify the main drivers of inclusive and sustainable value chains, and partner with the private sector in this regard. The roundtable, which was moderated by Marcela Villarreal, FAO Director of Communications, Partnerships and Advocacy, was certainly well attended, with IFAD and FAO staff, as well as government representatives. We had prominent speakers – most notably H.E. Dirk Niebel, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Federal Republic of Germany as our guest of honour, as well as IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze, Director General of Bioversity International Emile Frison, IFAD Associate Vice President Kevin Cleaver and Unilever Italy General Counsel Giulia di Tommaso.
The roundtable “icebreaker” was a video – a very inspirational one, given a theme which is close to everybody’s heart (i.e., rural poverty reduction), mind (striking the triple bottom line, i.e., how to make value chains profitable, environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive) and taste buds (chocolate!!!). Indeed, while we munch on our next chocolate bar, we would do well to appreciate the challenges faced in terms of pests and diseases and unsustainable production processes. These challenges hit the smallholder farmers hardest, as they are the main producers of cocoa, yet they affect us all. The video was on the MARS-IFAD partnership in Indonesia, where together we helped to improve the quality of cocoa and boost yields. This translated into a mutually beneficial relationship, and the training provided to farmers via the cocoa development centres is already producing 60% increases in yield. Now we are scaling up the cocoa development centres to new areas. See the video.
IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze highlighted that our willingness to be innovative is an essential ingredient – in our financing as in our partnerships. He proudly highlighted that IFAD pioneered practices that are now part of the mainstream – for instance focusing on sustainable financing mechanisms (i.e., financing through lending rather than grants), the participatory design of programmes and projects, and an emphasis on country ownership and cofinancing by domestic partners. These approaches are today recognized as best practices in sustainable development and have been crucial to the success of IFAD-funded projects and programmes. In recent years, IFAD has also been strengthening and further developing public-private partnerships in support of smallholder agriculture. This is because the Fund recognises that the private sector has become a major engine of growth in rural economies. IFAD views smallholder farming as a business, and advocates for others to approach smallholders and their needs with this in mind. So when we refer to “private investments in agriculture” we should not envisage the big companies only – but also the smallholders, because cumulatively they make large investments, in terms of their own money and labour. In fact, they are the primary on-farm investors in agriculture.
H.E. Dirk Niebel, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Federal Republic of Germany kicked off by stating that it is an outright scandal that 870 million people are still suffering from hunger, and that this is unacceptable. Recognizing that most of these people live in rural areas, promoting rural areas is key to fighting hunger and poverty – which is precisely what IFAD does. This is why IFAD is a particularly important partner for BMZ. In 2010, the BMZ made rural development and food security one of its priority areas and invested more than 2.1 billion euros to help prevent famines. BMZ’s ten-point programme for rural development and food security is also geared towards establishing partnership with international organisations like IFAD. He announced that, immediately prior to the roundtable, BMZ and IFAD signed a Joint Declaration of Intent: this collaboration will specifically promote the access of small farmers to markets for agricultural products by developing value chains, so that small farmers can produce more, in a sustainable way, and increase their incomes. The aim is to help smallholder transition towards market-oriented entrepreneurs. Responsible investments are required, with like-minded partners that are looking to the future and enhancing opportunities together.
Of course, the discussion would not have been complete without the perspective of the private sector, and Giulia di Tommaso (both Communication Director and General Counsel at Unilever Italy) ably provided that for us. Unilever operates in over 100 countries and flaunts a 50 billion euro turnover in 2012, mainly in the fast moving consumer goods sector. Knorr, Lipton, Dove are a few of the most famous Unilever brands. She told us that almost 50% of the raw materials sourced by Unilever come from agriculture, with 1.3 million smallholder farmers supplying over 12 crops (including tea, vegetables, spices, oil crops, cocoa and milk). There is a clear business rationale to ensure the sustainability of supply and linking smallholder farmers to global value chains. This is firmly embedded into the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, that looks at new business models for sustainable growth. Unilever works with smallholder farmers as part of this vision and is looking for ways to increase smallholders’ role in the value chain, so that they can benefit from value addition in processing and not only from production. Unilever found that partnerships with governments and with local NGOs have been of essence in unlocking this potential. Concurrently, Unilever is working hard to assess its impact on the ground - to ensure they deliver on what they promise and to identify approaches worth scaling up.
Director General of Bioversity International Emile Frison also made a very insightful presentation, highlighting that if we want to tackle the issue of hunger and poverty, investment that are very specific to agriculture for smallholders should be proactively pursued. In our work with Bioversity, IFAD smallholder farmers are indeed at centre stage. He highlighted that more is needed to meet their needs and that risk management is vital and of increasing importance. Maximising yields are not a solution if increases in productivity come at the expense of increases in risk. This is because farmers are risk averse – and understandably so, given their stakes are so high. Value chains are an important approach – but we must go beyond looking at single value chains (i.e., based on a commodity only) and we must instead focus on strengthening multiple value chains – involving neglected and underutilised species that are important for smallholder farmers' food security and resilience and that envisage farmers as innovators and not merely as producers. We also need to promote and involve local entrepreneurs in developing small machinery specifically adapted to the needs of smallholder farmers, recognising also the role (and addressing the needs) of women farmers. A prime example of this is the IFAD-funded grant to Bioversity implemented in the Kolli Hills (Tamil Nadu) in India, where we increased smallholder farmers’ income and food security from millet farming by improving agronomic practices leading to higher yields, redressing the drudgery associated with its traditional processing, improving value addition, stimulating product development and marketing. The role of these neglected crops with regard to promoting a sustainable and nutritious diet is also a major asset to be considered.
IFAD Associate Vice President Kevin Cleaver strongly reiterated that farmers need to feature more strongly as private sector in the debate – farmers, their groups and their cooperatives. He highlighted IFAD’s experience in promoting inclusive value chains – with examples from Uganda with palm oil, Rwanda with tea, Sao Tome and Principe with cocoa – in these interventions, IFAD-supported projects helped deliver crucial support to smallholder farmers along the value chain: organizing farmers into groups; capacity-building and training; access to finance; support for market standards and certification; better linkages with markets; and financing for small-scale market infrastructure. He highlighted that private enterprises do not want funding, but they require public investment that produces good infrastructure (meaning roads, water, education, electricity). He referred to this as creating a good “public space”. The marginality of rural areas, he said, has a lot to do with policy neglect and urban bias in services and investments.
Our audience interaction was also very rich, with interventions from IFAD staff as well as from Argentina, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, India and other government representatives. Several questions and caveats were raised, including the need to beware of monopsonies (with smallholder farmers over-dependent on few buyers only), the need to encourage local and regional markets, creating “public space” to generate investment not for foreign direct investment only but also for generating local investments, and partnering with private sector companies’ that evolved from promoting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to the concept of responsible investment (i.e., considering the triple bottom line). Nonetheless, IFAD is wary of the danger that some private investors may wish to exploit poor rural smallholders and precautionary measures are methodically taken to ensure this doesn’t happen.
To wrap up, some of the major messages that came through are: farmers play an important role as innovators, and a priority should be to improve their voice and bargaining power; it is important to create better rural employment opportunities (an interesting read in my opinion is Gary Fields’ book “Working Hard, Working Poor” ); we need to promote multiple value chains and address risk; and to achieve all this and more, partnerships are essential – not only for financing, but also to promote innovation, knowledge generation and knowledge sharing;
Useful links
• Concept note
• Private-sector strategy - Deepening IFAD’s engagement with the private sector (2011)
• IFAD and the private sector: building links to accelerate pro-poor rural development
• 10 points for a strategic approach to partnering with the private sector
• BMZ website
By 2050, the world will host more than 9 billion people. Developing countries’ agricultural production will need to increase by 60 per cent in order to adjust to this burgeoning population – which will in turn require an estimated net annual investment of US$83 billion. Of course, these investments must be sensitive to the sustainability and resilience of agriculture and food systems as well as support agriculture as a key driver of economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction. With this in mind, it is clear that in pursuing rural development, partnerships are essential - and partners need to appreciate the critical role and the interests of smallholder farmers.
On the 30th of April 2013, IFAD organized a roundtable discussion to identify the main drivers of inclusive and sustainable value chains, and partner with the private sector in this regard. The roundtable, which was moderated by Marcela Villarreal, FAO Director of Communications, Partnerships and Advocacy, was certainly well attended, with IFAD and FAO staff, as well as government representatives. We had prominent speakers – most notably H.E. Dirk Niebel, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Federal Republic of Germany as our guest of honour, as well as IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze, Director General of Bioversity International Emile Frison, IFAD Associate Vice President Kevin Cleaver and Unilever Italy General Counsel Giulia di Tommaso.
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| H.E. Dirk Niebel, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Federal Republic of Germany and IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze |
IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze highlighted that our willingness to be innovative is an essential ingredient – in our financing as in our partnerships. He proudly highlighted that IFAD pioneered practices that are now part of the mainstream – for instance focusing on sustainable financing mechanisms (i.e., financing through lending rather than grants), the participatory design of programmes and projects, and an emphasis on country ownership and cofinancing by domestic partners. These approaches are today recognized as best practices in sustainable development and have been crucial to the success of IFAD-funded projects and programmes. In recent years, IFAD has also been strengthening and further developing public-private partnerships in support of smallholder agriculture. This is because the Fund recognises that the private sector has become a major engine of growth in rural economies. IFAD views smallholder farming as a business, and advocates for others to approach smallholders and their needs with this in mind. So when we refer to “private investments in agriculture” we should not envisage the big companies only – but also the smallholders, because cumulatively they make large investments, in terms of their own money and labour. In fact, they are the primary on-farm investors in agriculture.
H.E. Dirk Niebel, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Federal Republic of Germany kicked off by stating that it is an outright scandal that 870 million people are still suffering from hunger, and that this is unacceptable. Recognizing that most of these people live in rural areas, promoting rural areas is key to fighting hunger and poverty – which is precisely what IFAD does. This is why IFAD is a particularly important partner for BMZ. In 2010, the BMZ made rural development and food security one of its priority areas and invested more than 2.1 billion euros to help prevent famines. BMZ’s ten-point programme for rural development and food security is also geared towards establishing partnership with international organisations like IFAD. He announced that, immediately prior to the roundtable, BMZ and IFAD signed a Joint Declaration of Intent: this collaboration will specifically promote the access of small farmers to markets for agricultural products by developing value chains, so that small farmers can produce more, in a sustainable way, and increase their incomes. The aim is to help smallholder transition towards market-oriented entrepreneurs. Responsible investments are required, with like-minded partners that are looking to the future and enhancing opportunities together.
Of course, the discussion would not have been complete without the perspective of the private sector, and Giulia di Tommaso (both Communication Director and General Counsel at Unilever Italy) ably provided that for us. Unilever operates in over 100 countries and flaunts a 50 billion euro turnover in 2012, mainly in the fast moving consumer goods sector. Knorr, Lipton, Dove are a few of the most famous Unilever brands. She told us that almost 50% of the raw materials sourced by Unilever come from agriculture, with 1.3 million smallholder farmers supplying over 12 crops (including tea, vegetables, spices, oil crops, cocoa and milk). There is a clear business rationale to ensure the sustainability of supply and linking smallholder farmers to global value chains. This is firmly embedded into the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, that looks at new business models for sustainable growth. Unilever works with smallholder farmers as part of this vision and is looking for ways to increase smallholders’ role in the value chain, so that they can benefit from value addition in processing and not only from production. Unilever found that partnerships with governments and with local NGOs have been of essence in unlocking this potential. Concurrently, Unilever is working hard to assess its impact on the ground - to ensure they deliver on what they promise and to identify approaches worth scaling up.
Director General of Bioversity International Emile Frison also made a very insightful presentation, highlighting that if we want to tackle the issue of hunger and poverty, investment that are very specific to agriculture for smallholders should be proactively pursued. In our work with Bioversity, IFAD smallholder farmers are indeed at centre stage. He highlighted that more is needed to meet their needs and that risk management is vital and of increasing importance. Maximising yields are not a solution if increases in productivity come at the expense of increases in risk. This is because farmers are risk averse – and understandably so, given their stakes are so high. Value chains are an important approach – but we must go beyond looking at single value chains (i.e., based on a commodity only) and we must instead focus on strengthening multiple value chains – involving neglected and underutilised species that are important for smallholder farmers' food security and resilience and that envisage farmers as innovators and not merely as producers. We also need to promote and involve local entrepreneurs in developing small machinery specifically adapted to the needs of smallholder farmers, recognising also the role (and addressing the needs) of women farmers. A prime example of this is the IFAD-funded grant to Bioversity implemented in the Kolli Hills (Tamil Nadu) in India, where we increased smallholder farmers’ income and food security from millet farming by improving agronomic practices leading to higher yields, redressing the drudgery associated with its traditional processing, improving value addition, stimulating product development and marketing. The role of these neglected crops with regard to promoting a sustainable and nutritious diet is also a major asset to be considered.
IFAD Associate Vice President Kevin Cleaver strongly reiterated that farmers need to feature more strongly as private sector in the debate – farmers, their groups and their cooperatives. He highlighted IFAD’s experience in promoting inclusive value chains – with examples from Uganda with palm oil, Rwanda with tea, Sao Tome and Principe with cocoa – in these interventions, IFAD-supported projects helped deliver crucial support to smallholder farmers along the value chain: organizing farmers into groups; capacity-building and training; access to finance; support for market standards and certification; better linkages with markets; and financing for small-scale market infrastructure. He highlighted that private enterprises do not want funding, but they require public investment that produces good infrastructure (meaning roads, water, education, electricity). He referred to this as creating a good “public space”. The marginality of rural areas, he said, has a lot to do with policy neglect and urban bias in services and investments.
Our audience interaction was also very rich, with interventions from IFAD staff as well as from Argentina, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, India and other government representatives. Several questions and caveats were raised, including the need to beware of monopsonies (with smallholder farmers over-dependent on few buyers only), the need to encourage local and regional markets, creating “public space” to generate investment not for foreign direct investment only but also for generating local investments, and partnering with private sector companies’ that evolved from promoting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to the concept of responsible investment (i.e., considering the triple bottom line). Nonetheless, IFAD is wary of the danger that some private investors may wish to exploit poor rural smallholders and precautionary measures are methodically taken to ensure this doesn’t happen.
To wrap up, some of the major messages that came through are: farmers play an important role as innovators, and a priority should be to improve their voice and bargaining power; it is important to create better rural employment opportunities (an interesting read in my opinion is Gary Fields’ book “Working Hard, Working Poor” ); we need to promote multiple value chains and address risk; and to achieve all this and more, partnerships are essential – not only for financing, but also to promote innovation, knowledge generation and knowledge sharing;
Useful links
• Concept note
• Private-sector strategy - Deepening IFAD’s engagement with the private sector (2011)
• IFAD and the private sector: building links to accelerate pro-poor rural development
• 10 points for a strategic approach to partnering with the private sector
• BMZ website
Joint Opinion Article by the Heads of FAO, IFAD, WFP and Bioversity
José Graziano da Silva, Director General, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO; Kanayo F. Nwanze, President, International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD; Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director, World Food Programme, WFP and
Emile A. Frison, Bioversity International
They struggle to make crops grow in the parched earth. They watch in despair as their seedlings and livestock are washed away by flash floods. They stand quietly in the markets and watch others buy food that has become too expensive for them to afford.
Who are they? They are the hundreds of millions of people who strive – and often fail – to get enough nutritious food each day to lead a healthy life. Hunger is the world’s greatest solvable problem. And solving it is the basis for sustainable development.
It’s a tragic irony that many of them could have better access to food, but don’t. They are smallholder farmers who barely manage to grow enough to feed their families, they are the landless and they are poor urban dwellers that live in communities where plenty of food is available. Their children are often malnourished, facing chronic illness, stunted physical and cognitive growth and reduced life expectancy.
Their experience proves a central truth that must be accepted by all participants in Rio+20, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development: There can be no sustainable development if billions live in poverty and hunger.
The theme of Rio+20 is “The Future We Want.” For many of the 1.3 billion people who live in extreme poverty, the future they want could be within their grasp. But this can only be achieved if governments and their citizens, civil society and the private sector, accept that it is the right of every person to be free from hunger, and are willing to act to make this happen. To do this we need to improve people’s access to food in their communities, increase production by 60 per cent by 2050, drastically reduce huge losses and waste of food and manage our natural resources sustainably, so that it flourishes for future generations.
The people who work on the world’s 500 million small farms are the drivers of rural economies and the custodians of a much of our natural resources and agricultural biodiversity. They have enormous potential as entrepreneurs, but lack the means needed to build their businesses, and their own food security and that of others.
When people have access to nutritious food and when they can support themselves and their families, the wider community feels the impact. Productivity increases, incomes rise and access to healthcare and education improves.
Rio+20 is a chance to rise to the challenge. We need to work together to implement policy reforms, create the incentives, invest in research and innovation, build human capacity and expand market opportunities for farmers and their families and small agribusinesses. We need to reform our food production and consumption systems using scarce resources more responsibly. Unless we sustainably manage land, water, fisheries, forests and biodiversity, we cannot achieve long-term agricultural growth.
Sustainable solutions must also be equitable solutions. A large number of smallholder farmers are women. For lasting development in agriculture and food security, women must have the same access as men to resources and the same participation in community decision-making.
Long-term improvement in the lives of millions of people depends on supporting their resilience through climate-smart agriculture and safety net programmes that strengthen their ability to withstand and recover from shocks like extreme weather, market downturns and food price spikes. It also depends on agriculture that provides more diverse foods for healthy diets and on using what we have more wisely by reducing losses and waste in the food supply chain.
As world leaders meet in Rio, we are at a crossroads. In one direction is the path to further environmental degradation and human suffering; in the other direction lies the future we all want. The Rio summit offers a historic opportunity we cannot afford to miss. Achieving healthier food for all and healthier ecosystems can be done. We know how to end hunger and manage the earth’s resources in a more sustainable way. But we need a stronger political will to do it.
We should look to Rio+20 as the beginning of a new process and not the end. The target date for the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is within sight. And we must redouble our efforts to meet those goals. Rio must be our stepping stone from the MDGs and their target date of 2015 to a new set of goals. This is our opportunity and we must seize it while we can.
No sustainable development without eradication of hunger and extreme poverty
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
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Statement on Rio +20 from Bioversity International, FAO, IFAD and WFP
Rio+20 gives us a golden opportunity to bring together the agendas of food security and sustainable development to build the future we want. Increasingly, we know how to eliminate hunger and poverty in ways that also promote sound management of natural resources, encourage social inclusion and drive economic growth.
There are 1.3 billion people living in extreme poverty, and close to 900 million chronically undernourished. An additional 1 billion suffer from “hidden hunger”, a lack of vitamins and minerals. Undernourishment in children prevents them from ever reaching their full physical and cognitive potential, costing lives, livelihoods and economic growth. We must all understand that the Rio vision of sustainable development cannot be achieved as long as hunger and extreme poverty persist.
We can and we must help poor people worldwide access the food they need, and we must support their efforts to escape the poverty trap for good. But the world's ecosystems and biodiversity are already under extreme pressure from overexploitation, degradation and the effects of climate change. We now face the challenge of raising global food production by 60 per cent by 2050 while managing the natural resource base so that we are not robbing future generations.
It can be done. We can reach our goal of eliminating hunger while promoting sustainable food production. We know what the right tools and policies are. What we need most are the governance systems and institutions that promote accountability and ensure that the right tools and policies are scaled up and applied.
Rio+20 must demonstrate the political will to improve governance, reform policy and, above all, take action. All our efforts toward "sustainable development" will be in vain if we cannot feed humanity and also safeguard the resources upon which life depends.
This is a shared challenge, involving actions that must be undertaken by government, the private sector and civil society, and producers and consumers of food. It is everyone’s responsibility. We must unlock the power of partnerships, working across sectors and tearing down barriers that have sometimes made development efforts uncoordinated and inefficient. The principles of inclusiveness, equity, gender equality and a rights-based approach must be upheld both in the consultative process and the actions undertaken. We can also build upon existing institutions such as the inclusive Committee on World Food Security (CFS).
We must recognize that individuals and the private sector make the bulk of investments in our food systems. The people who work the world's 500 million small farms are the backbone of many rural economies, and are the largest investors in agriculture in the developing world. They are also custodians of a large part of the world's natural resources and biodiversity. They have enormous potential as entrepreneurs, but all too often lack the resources they need to thrive, feed their families and contribute to the food and nutrition security of others.
Women are drivers of change. The majority of small farmers are women. Giving them the same access as men to assets, services and other resources could make a powerful contribution to poverty reduction and food security. Let us not waste this potential, nor exclude their voices.
We must scale up safety nets and build resilient livelihoods and landscapes. To ensure access to adequate and nutritious food at all times, the poorest and most vulnerable people in both rural and urban areas need to be supported through research, education, assistance, and social protection programmes, or safety nets. Disaster risk management and resilience-building need to be adopted by food-insecure countries and communities exposed to increasing land degradation and resource scarcity, changing rainfall patterns and extreme weather events, as well as market downturns, food price spikes and other shocks.
Responsible tenure systems* are needed to secure access rights to land, fisheries and forests for poor people. Agricultural methods and technologies that work with and not against nature can help them produce more, and more sustainably. Promotion of crop diversification can ensure that agriculture produces a variety of foods suitable for health and nutrition, and also provide the necessary resilience to cope with climate change.
Action also must be taken to deal with the fact that one third of food produced globally is wasted or lost to spoilage, damage and other causes. Making the most of what we already produce and harvest would reduce the increase in production required to feed a growing population, raise the incomes and food security of poor farmers, and also minimize the impact of food production on global ecosystems.
The future we want is within our grasp. Together, the Rome-based food and agriculture agencies commit to working with international organizations, governments, research institutions, civil society and non-governmental organizations, cooperatives, small farmers’ organizations, communities and the private sector, at all levels. We must all rise together to meet this challenge.
Let us seize this historic opportunity. Let us dedicate ourselves to transforming our current unsustainable food production and consumption systems, so as to ensure access to sufficient nutritious food for all people. We must act now.
* The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security, recently endorsed by the CFS, outline principles and practices that governments can refer to when making laws and administering land, fisheries and forests rights.
Inspired by the Addis Share Fair, the organizers of the Second Global AgriKnowledge Share Fair committed to have a daily newspaper -- which we called the Daily Corriere. Here are the four issues - for those who may have missed them! Enjoy reading and let's keep the spirit of #sfrome alive! Thanks everyone for your participation, contribution, for sharing and your friendship! Hasta la vista!
Daily Corriere: The Second Global AgriKnowledge Share Fair daily newspaper
View more documents from IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development
Daily Corriere - issue no. 2 - Global AgriKnowledge Share Fair daily newspaper
View more documents from IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development
Daily Corriere issue number 3 - The Share Fair newsletter
View more documents from IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development
Daily Corriere issue number 4 - Share Fair Daily newspaper
View Share Fair photos on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/sharefair09/ or on IFAD's Facebook Page: http://on.fb.me/qYNt4R. Check out all related blogpost at http://ifad-un.blogspot.com/search/label/sfrome and http://blog.sharefair.net/search/label/sfrome
View more documents from IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development
What does it take to make the ShareFair happen? Don’t ask ‘what’, ask ‘who’!
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
1 comments
When walking through the IFAD corridors this warm Italian September week one cannot help but be amazed by the buzzing, vibrant energy that is felt in every part of the building. People chat in corners, engage in up to 15 parallel group sessions, share their thoughts with someone with a video camera or sit in the hallway with their laptop on their lap, communicating one of their many impressions through email, Twitter or a blog. Over 600 participants, 160 projects, 200+ scheduled group or plenary sessions, and one is left with an immediate question: How on earth did they pull this off? After all, there is no professional event management company involved here that pulls the strings. This event is done by the sponsoring organizations themselves, with a surprisingly low budget and mostly with staff who – if they are not helping plan and implement knowledge fairs – have other jobs to do.
I talked to some of the organizers to get a small glimpse of the machinery that made this event happen behind the scenes. Planning for this ShareFair started already in January 2011, with a one-day facilitated brainstorming workshop where the Rome-based stakeholders ( Bioversity International, CGIAR ICT-KM programme, FAO, IFAD and WFP) got together to determine the general direction and approach they wanted to take with this event, building on the first event that took place at FAO in 2009. After that a Steering Committee was established in February to plan the event.
As there is no general existing budget for Rome ShareFairs, the team members from the different host organizations had to raise funds for the significant logistical and programmatic requirements (which include necessities such as security, ambulance, infrastructure and communication expenses) as well as to fund travel expenses for proposals from participants who otherwise could not come to the fair and share their learnings. Yet, I was surprised to learn that this entire event is realized with notably less than $200,000 (actual and in-kind) accumulated resources overall.Talking about proposals: roughly 300 proposals were submitted after the Steering Committee publicly announced the ShareFair through their website in May 2011. The submissions were reviewed and filtered down to about 160, the maximum capacity of content sessions that the IFAD building can accommodate during the three main days of the fair with up to 15 parallel sessions at a given time slot.
These sessions, however, are rarely self runners. If the thematic expert is not by chance also a communication professional, a facilitator is needed to help the presenter avoiding tiring PowerPoint slides and instead turn the presentation into an engaging, participatory learning session using knowledge sharing approaches. But where to get those versed facilitators from? Luckily, Knowledge Management staff in Rome are well connected with the Knowledge Management for Development Network (KM4Dev), a community of KM practitioners working in development. Additionally, a call was placed also within each of the participating organizations for facilitators. By calling on about 50+ volunteer facilitators, the ShareFair organizers were able to provide professional facilitation for almost all project presentations, drawing on a range of creative and participatory facilitation methodologies which were introduced in a pre-conference training day for participants interested in these tools.
The training sessions of this so-called “Training and Learning Day” included not only facilitation techniques, but also introductory sessions into a range of social media tools for knowledge exchange and communication, such as Twitter, Facebook, Photos, Blogs or Podcasts. That those sessions were not just theoretical exercises was demonstrated during the entire week by the social reporting team, a group of about 30+ social media enthusiasts who committed to report live from event sessions and interactions in between sessions through the full range of social media tools. This way, the immediate audience of a few hundred on-site participants could be extended to many thousands of interested practitioners that followed the event online, by reading blogs, viewing video interviews or responding to tweets posted during the event.
Finally, as a participant of the Fair, besides noticing some of the more visible faces of the fair that give announcements and introduce sessions, you will most likely run into one of the many volunteers who are supporting the logistics behind the scene at any given moment: as registration desk volunteers, as information focal points and helpful guides on each floor, behind the technology that provides meeting room infrastructure, WLAN access and live webcast, or as runners who help fixing the many little and bigger emergencies that we mostly don’t even notice as participants.
So again, what does it take to make such a ShareFair happen? It takes all those people, seen and unseen, and I think they deserve a collective tipping of hats for the astounding work they do. Or you just walk up to the next one you see and give that person a ‘thank you’. And if you bring them a cup of coffee they might even reward you with more interesting details on life behind the scenes of the ShareFair!
by Silvia Lambiase
On Tuesday 27 September, for the second day of this fantastic Share Fair, Adriana Alercia, Jessica Raneri and Ana Laura Cerutti, from Bioversity International (also on behalf of Michael Mackay who unfortunately couldnít attend the meeting) gave us a great and interesting presentation on GENESYS Gateway to Genetic Resources.
There couldn't be a better start to show efficiently what this incredible tool is: a video which stressed the importance and value of recording data and sharing it as a benefit for the whole world.
Genesys, with the financial support of the Global Crop Diversity Trust and through strong partnerships with the CGIR centres and the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources, aims (and succeeds) at serve as a better tool for plant genetic resources (PGR), climate change and food security experts and breeders, with its 24 million records of crops and their respective characterization, evaluation and environmental data.
At the moment, Genesys includes detailed information on 22 crops belonging to the Annex 1 of the International Treaty, but very soon Adriana &co. will provide us with data on crops of Neglected and Underutilised Species (NUS)!
Bioversity Standards, which were developed together with FAO and EURISCO, are becoming more and more important worldwide, to the point that theyíre now considered the international standards.
We've seen the value of recording data said Adriana, but how can we make sure that all people all over the world can store all the information in one place? Are the characteristics contained in GENESYS important for breeders and PGR users to improve varieties to face climate change?
She said the quality of information is obviously very important. There is a number of portals where you can find characteristics and passport data, but GENESYS is unique because it contains all the information breeders are looking for to face climate change: it contains passport data from 500 countries all over the world, besides environmental data so that users can find and locate the specific crop they are looking for, for example that is particularly resistant to a specific pest or disease.
As the video showed, it is also crucial for breeders in Africa (and anywhere else in the World) who are concerned about the uncertainty of rainfall and are struggling to feed their family: GENESYS is unbelievably useful since it allows them to find crops that are particularly suitable to the environment they live in! It tries to provide quick solutions for these people facing climate change.
Jessica Raneri gave us a very efficient explanation on how user-friendly this portal is, and gave us great examples on how simple it is to use it. Users can make specific trait queries and even narrow their search, for example by typing annual precipitation, average temperature and protein content. Breeders can even have, if they wish, a sample deliverd by genebanks.
A GIS map is also available and you can download the information into google earth in order to better locate the crops, download the whole crop information into a pdf file which will immediately be saved on your computer, summarising all the crop's characteristics, besides the country/institute which holds it and number of accessions.
Adriana concluded her presentation by telling us what the lessons learnt from the GENESYS project are:
- Researchers desperately want access to all available programme information
- There is a huge demand for interoperability with other information systems, such as genetic and molecular data
- There is a requirement for broader PGR and research communityís involvement in future development
- There is a huge demand of standards for additional crops and subjects
- Researchers participate eagerly to their development
- The global participation of researchers to standards development has granted the international status within the PGR community.
After the presentation, Adriana, Jessica and Ana Laura answered to questions.
Question: Why can you only download 5 mega bytes?
Answer: Since it's not our information, we need to make sure that people can download all at once, and we havenít reached an agreement yet with who provides the information
Q: What's the total number of accessions and what percentage of that has latitude and longetude (location) information?
A: 2 million, and all of them have location information even though there could be some mistakes but GENESYS is trying to correct them. Adriana then pointed out that the information contained in GENESYS is equivaelent to 11 million of phenotype characteristic and that they have 24 million records on passport information.
Q: With regards to NUS (Neglected and Under-utilised species), how many of them can we access through Genesys?
A: That's our next step, this is what we've been requested to do: more crops in addition to the ones in annex 1. Our plan is also to develop pedigree data.
Q: Do you already use this portal?
A: The project is managed by Michael, so for this type of information you should ask him.
Q: Do u have any analisys on queries?
A: Yes, we have access to this information, for example from which countries users are logging in and what crop theyíre looking for, and we can keep a database on that. We warmly invite you to check out GENESYS on www.genesys-pgr.org! If you want to ask any questions or send your suggestions to the GENESYS team, you can contact GENESYS directly from the website (contact). If you wish to be a data provider you have to agree with a protocol. At the moment, until the 15th of November, you can complete a survey which is available on the website, to collect information and impressions, to address the process of improvement of GENESYS to meet the userís needs.
'Neglected no more: traditional crops for sustainable livelihoods'
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
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Thousands of neglected and underutilized species (NUS) of crops offer tremendous opportunities for food and nutritional security and have the potential to improve rural people’s livelihoods. When we refer to NUS, we are often told that if these species are underutilized, there must be a reason why. And indeed there is. The trouble is that the reasons are often not good ones: they are often based on misconceptions; production or marketing bottlenecks that can sometimes be easily surmounted; lack of information on the cultural, nutritional and environmental properties of these species etc.
This event was organized by 4 organizations, namely Bioversity International, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (FAO), Oxfam Italia and the IFAD. We chose the TED talk format, with Stefano Padulosi from Bioversity International telling us stories from rural communities from all over the world to understand the importance of NUS. The main protagonist was a cake, made out of quinoa (an Andean grain) and sold in La Paz’s version of “Starbucks” – a place called Alexander Coffee. This very special cake is the result of a 10 year project funded by IFAD that involved hundreds of people from poor communities across Bolivia. Being able to enjoy this cake in Alexander Coffee means that we have been successful in conserving NUS and making them competitive on the market and attractive to all those who go to there.
Quinoa has been cultivated for centuries in the Andean region. It is very nutritious as an important source of protein and iron. the Incas considered it a sacred crop, and the emperor would traditionally sow the first seeds of the season using implements made of gold. But now it has become a NUS and is considered 'poor people's food'.
A fundamental problem with quinoa is that its preparation is painful. Quinoa seeds are coated with a layer of saponine, a bitter and toxic alkaloid. To get rid of this layer, women first toasted the seeds on a metal tray over a fire. Then the hot seeds are tipped into a stone basin and the women tread them with their bare feet, causing blisters and chronic lower back pain. Moreover, this process can take 6 hours to process 12 kg of quinoa. The project provided the target group with a machine to remove the saponine and what previously took hours now was done in just 7 minutes.
NUS are often also important as medicinal and aromatic plants – for example wild fennel. In the Errachidea province in Morocco, the value of this herb is currently neglected and consequently its exploitation is underutilized. New generations are slowly forgetting the knowledge and traditional use of these plants. However, these plants can be an important income opportunity for poor rural communities. In the case of wild fennel, its cultivation (instead of colleting it directly as spontaneous plant) in one year may improve the average household income by 75%. Thanks to a project by Oxfam Italy, 33 families in the villages of Sidi Boukil and Gourama are now learning how to promote these herbs in the markets thus improving their livelihoods.
Creating an enabling policy environment – both at national and international level – is necessary to deploy the economic potential of NUS for the poor. Thus, the role of the FAO International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture is pivotal for supporting NUS, in terms of more sustainable conservation and a wider use of agrobiodiversity. Several Grants have been awarded by the Treaty to organizations around the world, via its Benefit Sharing Fund. This is a great contribution towards the creation of a more secure food basket for the world.
In sum, NUS have a great potential: they can increase incomes, enhance nutrition and preserve the culinary and cultural traditions of indigenous communities. Moreover, these crops are often better adapted to grow in marginal areas, with little need for irrigation, pesticides and fertilizers. In many instances these species are the only crops that can cope with harsh environments unfit for other crops. And they can also play an important role in boosting responsible and sustainable tourism.
by Anna Spiteri
Searching for ideas in the media space amidst election tensions in the country, he realised that half of the Kenyan population of 39 million, were under 18 years old, and that nobody was reaching these youths. So the story of Boy or DJB evolved...a young man, clever, unemployed..without tertiary education..and living on the peripheral slums in Nairobi... Rob told us that ...DJB did not want to join his friends who left school and eventually turned into gangsters....because he had a secret...in his bedroom he had built an FM radio, called shu jazz. And every evening he broadcasted to other young listeners, all young, young girls and boys determined to make things better for themselves, rather than succumb to ganghood.
So together with DJB other characters were invented and a whole team came together to produce stories with a message in a comic format, 32 pages long on recycled paper...with excerpts appearing in the Daily Nation. The whole team of script writers and graphic artists are all young talented people from 18 to 23 years old, many of them coming from the slums..so they have first hand knowledge of the stories they portray. They also go and test their stories in the field..in spaces where the young people they are portraying actually live...The 10 million comics produced so far are very popular with young kids and are written in the new speak of the Kenyan youth....This success led to the setting up of a dynamic show ...where smses and phone ins and jokes are all part of the show with a record of 97 million contacts since last year and 45000 conversations a day. There are 20 FM stations every day reaching half of Kenya s youth with tens of thousands of sms messages streaming in .....creating this level of illusion in a cyber space where this young man and his friends live... a magical world...carried away with a good story..with a message...
Rob understood that young people are not interested in development talk..they are interested in having fun and making money.....as his encounters with groups of young people in rural spaces taught him...but he found a way...He showed excerpts from the comics where the story ends with a message inserted inside the story.....messages on planting seeds ; or how to vaccinate baby chicks against the Newcastle disease or how important it is to soak your seeds!
His final shot was a Chicken of Change...also a character in a comic ...giving the messge that more attention should be given to livestock..partly aimed at the government to do more about livestock. Rob messages were simple...but very important for anyone who wants to follow in his steps 1. It s not the what..it’s the how.....it s urgent and it needs to happen 2. Push does not work..it has to be Pull.. 3. Research must go all the way to the user 4. Need to communicate, it does not happen by accident...requires professional media people ; and money. One needs to invest to achieve impact.....
