Location: Netherlands

A group of farmers involved in participatory rice breeding trials near Begnas Lake, Pokhara, Nepal. (Photo: Neil Palmer/CIAT/CCAFS)

From diagnosis to action on social equity

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on November 29, 2021. Posted in Blogs.

As CGIAR develops 33 exciting new research Initiatives, it is essential for its new research portfolio to move beyond “diagnosing gender issues” and to supporting real change for greater social equity. Gender-transformative research and methodologies are needed, co-developed between scientists and a wide range of partners.

To advance this vision, gender scientists from ten CGIAR centers and key partner institutions came together from October 25 to 27, 2021, in a hybrid workshop. Some participants were in Amsterdam, hosted by KIT, and others joined online from Canada, the Philippines and everywhere in between.

The workshop emerged from gender scientists’ desire to create a supportive innovation space for CGIAR researchers to integrate gender-transformative research and methodologies into the new CGIAR Initiatives.

The organizing team calls this effort GENNOVATE 2, as it builds on GENNOVATE, the trailblazing gender research project which ran across the CGIAR between 2014 and 2018.

GENNOVATE 2 promises to help CGIAR Initiatives achieve progress in the Gender, Youth and Social Inclusion Impact Area. It will also advance change towards Sustainable Development Goals 5 and 10 on gender and other forms of inequality.

In the workshop, participants sought to:

Share and develop ideas, methods and approaches to operationalize gender-transformative research and methodologies. Working groups focused on an initial selection of CGIAR Initiatives, representing all the Action Areas of CGIAR:
- ClimBeR: Building Systemic Resilience against Climate Variability and Extremes; (Systems Transformation)
- Securing the Asian Mega-Deltas from Sea-level Rise, Flooding, Salinization and Water Insecurity (Resilient Agrifood Systems)
- Sustainable Intensification of Mixed Farming Systems (Resilient Agrifood Systems)
- Market Intelligence and Product Profiling (Genetic Innovation)
Build on the significant investments, methods, data, and results from the original GENNOVATE.
Conceive a community of practice for continued sharing, learning and collaboration, across and within Initiatives, to accelerate progress on gender and social equity.

Participants at the GENNOVATE 2 workshop in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in October 2021.

Joining a vibrant community

GENNOVATE 2 is envisioned to complement the CGIAR GENDER Platform and the proposed new CGIAR gender-focused research Initiative, HER+.

“We have several gender methodology assets in CGIAR, and GENNOVATE is one of them,” said Nicoline de Haan, Director of the CGIAR GENDER Platform, opening the workshop. “We want to make sure we cultivate and grow the efforts started during GENNOVATE and move forward important lessons and practices in the new CGIAR portfolio.”

The team of scientists behind GENNOVATE 2 wants to support a vibrant community of researchers who “work out loud.” They will document and share their research methodologies, experiences and insights, in order to accelerate learning on gender issues and scale out successes more quickly.

The ultimate objectives of GENNOVATE 2 are to:

Develop and deepen a set of methodologies expected to directly empower women, youth, and marginalized groups in the targeted agri-food systems
Contribute to normative change towards increased gender equality across different scales, ranging from households to countries.
Generate and build an evidence base on the relationship between empowering women, youth and marginalized people, and moving towards climate-resilient and sustainable agri-food systems — and vice versa.

“An example of the added value GENNOVATE 2 can bring to CGIAR Initiatives is understanding what maintains prevailing gender norms in research sites, and also at relevant institutional and political levels,” said Anne Rietveld, gender scientist at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, and co-organizer of the workshop. “This will enable CGIAR scientists, partners and policymakers to design locally relevant gender-transformative approaches and policies for more impact. We can do this by building on our GENNOVATE 1 evidence base, adapting methods from GENNOVATE 1 and co-developing new methods in GENNOVATE 2.”

What’s next?

The workshop showed that many scientists from CGIAR and partner institutes are motivated to invest in the vision of GENNOVATE 2. Achieving impact in the Gender, Youth and Social Inclusion Impact Area will require concerted efforts and inputs from scientists on the ground.

“There is a groundswell of experience and enthusiasm that you, we, this group brings. We need answers and we can and should work together to make this a reality,” remarked Jon Hellin, Platform Leader – Sustainable Impact in Rice-based Systems at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), and co-lead of the ClimBeR Initiative.

The organizing team listed concrete actions to follow the workshop:

Developing processes and spaces for discussing methodological advancements among the gender scientists in these four Initiatives which other Initiatives can tap into, contribute to and become part of.
To develop these shared and integrated methodologies and approaches into a GENNOVATE 2 conceptual and methodological roadmap — to contribute to the CGIAR Gender, Youth, and Social Inclusion Impact Area and guide other Initiatives, as well as bilateral research
To develop a position paper articulating what can be achieved through concerted efforts to integrate gender and social equity more effectively into the Initiatives, to showcase gender-transformative research methods for further development and implementation. The aim of the position paper is to influence global science leaders and CGIAR leadership in how they include issues of social equity in the Initiatives.
To support these conversations, learnings and harmonization processes through setting up a community of practice, where the “practice” to be improved is the practice of advancing gender research methodologies to go from diagnosis to action. This will start with a core group of enthusiastic researchers and then will expand as it gains momentum, so that all researchers in the various Initiatives interested in social equity can contribute
To seek funding opportunities to support the activities outlined above.

The GENNOVATE 2 organizing team welcomes the participation of interested CGIAR Initiatives as they move forward. The organizing team will also help strengthen interactions with external resource people and research networks, in to cross-pollinate new knowledge and innovations.

If you would like to know more about GENNOVATE 2, please contact Anne Rietveld, Gender Scientist at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT and Hom Gartaula, Gender and Social Inclusion Specialist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

The GENNOVATE 2 workshop was supported with funds from the CGIAR Research Programs on Roots Tubers and Bananas, Maize, and Wheat.

Workshop organizers Anne Rietveld (Alliance), Cathy Rozel Farnworth (Pandia Consulting, an independent gender researcher), Diana Lopez (WUR) and Hom Gartaula (CIMMYT) guided participants. Arwen Bailey (Alliance) served as facilitator.

Participants were: Renee Bullock (ILRI); Afrina Choudhury (WorldFish); Marlene Elias (Alliance); Gundula Fischer (IITA); Eleanor Fisher (The Nordic Africa Institute/ClimBeR); Alessandra Galie (ILRI); Elisabeth Garner (Cornell University/Market Intelligence); Nadia Guettou (Alliance); Jon Hellin (IRRI); Deepa Joshi (IWMI); Berber Kramer (IFPRI); Els Lecoutere (CGIAR GENDER Platform); Angela Meentzen (CIMMYT); Gaudiose Mujawamariya (AfricaRice); Surendran Rajaratnam (WorldFish); Bela Teeken (IITA), among others.

External experts who provided methodological inputs were: Nick Vandenbroucke of Trias talking about institutional change; Shreya Agarwal of Digital Green talking about transformative data; Katja Koegler of Oxfam Novib talking about Gender Action Learning Systems (GALS) for community-led empowerment; and Phil Otieno of Advocates for Social Change (ADSOCK) talking about masculinities and working with men.

Breaking Ground: Lara Roeven delves into complex gender dynamics

Written by Emma Orchardson on January 15, 2020. Posted in Features.

Lara Roeven completed her undergraduate degree in social sciences at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where she focused primarily on political science in a program that combined this with the study of psychology, law and economics. “I liked it a lot because it gave me an interdisciplinary look at how social injustice manifests itself.”

Having worked on gender and social inclusion issues in the past, she had already heard of CGIAR and its research portfolio, but it was the interdisciplinarity of CIMMYT’s approach that prompted her to apply to the organization at the end of a study abroad program in Mexico. “I had a strong interest in agriculture and I’d always wanted to look at how gender and social inclusion issues affect women and marginalized groups within the context of rural, environmental or climate change, so this role seemed like a good fit.”

Since joining CIMMYT’s Gender and Social Inclusion research unit in January 2019, Roeven has been part of a team of researchers analyzing the ways in which gender norms and agency influence the ability of men, women and young people to learn about, access and adopt innovations in agriculture and natural resource management.

So far, Roeven has mainly been supporting data analysis and helping to produce literature reviews. She has contributed to a number of studies simultaneously over the past year, from the feminization of agriculture in India to changing gender norms in Tanzania. “It’s very interesting because you learn the particularities of many different countries, and the extent to which gender norms can differ and really influence people’s opportunities.”

Searching for nuance

A lot of research follows a similar pattern in highlighting the relationship between women’s work and empowerment, but realities on the ground are often more nuanced. In India, for example, well-established social structures add another layer of complexity to gender dynamics. “What I found interesting when we started looking into the ways in which gender and caste interrelate was that nothing is straightforward.”

Women from higher castes can actually be more isolated than women from lower ones, she explains, for whom it can be more accepted to pursue paid work outside of the home. However, lower-caste women also frequently experience high levels of poverty and vulnerability and face social exclusion in other realms of life.

“These dynamics are actually a lot more complicated than we usually think. And that’s why it’s so interesting to do this kind of comparative research where you can see how these issues manifest themselves in different areas, and what researchers or development practitioners working at ground level have to take into account in order to address the issues these women face.”

Eventually, Roeven hopes to pursue a PhD and a career in academia, but for the time being she’s enjoying working on research that has so much potential for impact. “There are many studies showing that gender gaps need to be closed in order to increase food security and eliminate hunger,” she says. “I feel like many interventions, extension services or trainings don’t always have the desired effect because they do not effectively reach women farmers or young people. Certain people are continuously left out.”

Conducting this kind of research is a crucial step in working towards empowering women across the world, and Roeven would like to see more researchers incorporating this into their work, and really taking on gender as a relational concept. “We can keep on conducting research within the Gender and Social Inclusion research unit, but it would be interesting if our approaches could be mainstreamed in other disciplinary areas as well.”

Though it might not be easy, Roeven emphasizes that it is necessary in order to have an impact and prevent innovations from exacerbating gender and social inequality. “Besides,” she adds, “I think it’s great when research has a social relevance.”

2019 World Food Prize recognizes the impact of bringing improved seeds to Africa, Asia and Latin America

Written by Alison Doody on October 16, 2019. Posted in News.

Simon N. Groot is the winner of the 2019 World Food Prize. With this award, food and agriculture leaders recognize his work to increase vegetable production in more than 60 countries, through the development of high-quality seeds and training programs for farmers.

Groot’s efforts were crucial in leading millions of farmers to become horticulture entrepreneurs, resulting in improved incomes and livelihoods for them, and greater availability of nutritious vegetables for hundreds of millions of consumers.

Like small-town Iowa farm boy Norman Borlaug, Groot comes from a small town in the Netherlands, where he learned the value of seeds at a young age. Both shared the same vision to feed the world and succeeded.

“I think I was born to be a vegetable seedsman.”
– Simon N. Groot

Groot devoted his whole life to the seed and plant breeding industry. After 20 years in the industry in Europe and North America, Groot travelled to southeast Asia at the age of 47 with a vision to set up the region’s first vegetable seed breeding company. Frustrated by the poor quality seeds he found and noticing a total lack of commercial breeding activities in the region, Groot decided to set up his own company, using his own capital, partnering with Benito Domingo, a Philippines local with a passion for seeds and local connections to the traditional seed trade, agriculture industry and universities.

The company, named East-West Seed Company, started out as a small five-hectare farm outside Lipa City, Philippines. Groot brought over well-trained plant breeders from the Netherlands to begin plant breeding and help train locals as breeders and technicians. Groot was the first to introduce commercial vegetable hybrids in tropical Asia: varieties which were high-yielding, fast-growing and resistant to local diseases and stresses. Today, East-West Seed Company has over 973 improved varieties of 60 vegetable crops which are used by more than 20 million farmers across Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Inspired by Borlaug

Groot described meeting Dr. Borlaug at a conference in Indonesia in the late 1980s as “a pivotal moment” for him, writing that “his legacy has continued to serve as an inspiration for everything I have done at East-West Seed.”

In response to being awarded the 2019 World Food Prize, Groot wrote: “Bringing about the ‘Vegetable Revolution’ will be a fitting tribute to the work of Dr. Borlaug.”

The World Food Prize has been referred to as the “Nobel Prize for food and agriculture.” Awarded by the World Food Prize Foundation, it recognizes individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world. Winners receive $250,000 in prize money.

The World Food Prize was founded in 1986 by Norman Borlaug, recipient of the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize.

The World Food Prize has a long association with CIMMYT. Sanjaya Rajaram was awarded the 2014 World Food Prize for his work that led to a prodigious increase in world wheat production. Evangelina Villegas and Surinder Vasal were awarded the 2000 World Food Prize for their work on productivity and nutritional content of maize. Bram Govaerts received the Norman Borlaug Field Award in 2014. As an institution, CIMMYT received the Norman Borlaug Field Medallion in 2014.

Participants of the Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) Contributor’s meeting pose for a group photograph. (Photo: Sam Storr/CIMMYT)

Breeders find strength in diversity at EiB contributor meeting

Written by Sam Storr on December 10, 2018. Posted in Features.

Around 115 members of the CGIAR breeding community, plus others representing national programs, universities, funders and the private sector, met for a three-day discussion of how to co-develop the next generation of advanced breeding programs that will improve the rate at which resource-poor farmers are able to adopt improved varieties that meet their needs.

The annual Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) Contributor’s meeting, held this year in Amsterdam from 13-15 November, caps a year of engagement with CGIAR Centers and national agricultural research system (NARS) partners around the world.

*Paul Kimani, from the University of Nairobi, speaks during the meeting. (Photo: Sam Storr/CIMMYT)*

“Although breeding is one of the oldest functions in CGIAR, we have never had a meeting like this with scientists from all the centers,” said Michael Baum, director of Biodiversity and Crop Improvement at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, (ICARDA). “Within CGIAR, plant breeding started as a science, but now we are looking at how to implement it not as a science but as an operation, as it is done in the private sector, so there are many new concepts.”

Key items on the agenda for November were new tools to develop product profiles and create improvement plans that will define the modernization agenda in each center and across the Platform itself, based in part on the Breeding Program Assessment Tool (BPAT) that most Centers completed in 2018.

The conversation was enriched by Paul Kimani (University of Nairobi) presenting on the Demand-led Variety Design project, which produced the book, “The Business of Plant Breeding.”

Ranjitha Puskur, gender research coordinator at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), started an animated discussion on how to incorporate gender into product design by thinking about customer segments.

Tim Byrne from AbacusBio introduced methods for identifying farmer preferences to be targeted by breeding programs.

IRRI's Ranjitha Puskur started a discussion on how to incorporate gender into product design. (Photo: Sam Storr/CIMMYT) — *IRRI’s Ranjitha Puskur started a discussion on how to incorporate gender into product design. (Photo: Sam Storr/CIMMYT)*

In breakout sessions, contributors were able to have detailed discussions according to their various specializations: phenotyping, genotyping and bioinformatics/data management. The direct feedback from contributors will be incorporated into EiB workplans for training and tool development for the coming year.

A key outcome of the meeting was an agreement to finalize the product profile tool, to be made available to EiB members in early December 2018. The tool helps breeders to work with other specialisms, such as markets, socioeconomics and gender, to define the key traits needed in new products for farmers. This helps to focus breeding activities towards areas of greatest impact, supports NARS to play a greater role, and creates accountability and transparency for donors, in part by defining the geographic areas being targeted by programs.

“Breeding trees is different to the annual crops,” said Alice Muchugi, genebank manager at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), “but we are seeing what we can borrow from our colleagues. By uploading what we are doing in maps, for example, donors are able to perceive the specific challenges we are undertaking.”

EiB's George Kotch describes his vision of product profiles. (Photo: Sam Storr/CIMMYT) — *EiB’s George Kotch describes his vision of product profiles. (Photo: Sam Storr/CIMMYT)*

“I think we have realized there are lot of challenges in common, and the Platform is helping us all work on those,” said Filippo Bassi, durum wheat breeder at ICARDA. “I like to see all the people around the room, if you look at the average age there is a big shift; the number of countries present also tells you a lot.”

Tabare Abadie, R&D external academic outreach lead at Corteva Agriscience, also saw the meeting as a good opportunity to meet a broader group of people. “One of the take homes I hear is [that] there are a lot of challenges, but also a lot of communication and understanding. For me as a contributor it’s an incentive to keep supporting EiB, because we have gone through those changes before [at Corteva], and we can provide some know-how and experience of what happens,” Abadie explained.

“There are still a lot of gaps to fill, but this is a good start,” said Thanda Dhliwayo, maize breeder at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). “We need to get everyone involved, from leadership down to the guys working in the field.”

Michael Quinn, director of the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform, discusses the CGIAR’s initiative on crops to end hunger.

Agricultural attachés visit CIMMYT

Written by on February 15, 2018. Posted in News.

Group photo of agricultural attachés at CIMMYT. Photo: CIMMYT/P.Arredondo

Agricultural attachés from 10 Mexican embassies visited the headquarters of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) on February 15. Countries represented included, Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Kazakhstan, Spain, the Netherlands and New Zealand.

Annie Tremblay, who was representing the Netherlands, gave a presentation on agriculture in the Netherlands. She emphasized the most commonly traded commodities between the Netherlands and Mexico and said she sees Mexico as a “sleeping giant” in the flower-trading world.

Following Tremblay’s presentation, Martin Kropff talked about how CIMMYT works globally to improve livelihoods. As Kropff explained CIMMYT’s biofortification work, he stressed that in a perfect world people would be able to diversify their diets and get nutrients from all kinds of plants, but that many people CIMMYT serves are living on less than two dollars a day. “This is not the solution, but it is a solution.”

Bram Govaerts gave a presentation about the work Sustainable Intensification Program in Latin America (SIP-LatAm) is doing and discussed the importance of public-private partnerships to the MasAgro program. This underscored Kropff’s points about the importance of public-private partnerships to CIMMYT and the importance of corporate social responsibility.

The final presentation to the group of attachés was by Hans Braun and Carolina Saint Pierre on the Global Wheat Program. They emphasized wheat as a good source of fiber, antioxidants, micronutrients and protein. The presentation focused on global partnerships in the wheat program and meeting future production goals.

The attachés then toured the CIMMYT campus, learning about the germplasm bank and biodiversity, the global wheat and maize breeding programs and goals to improve seeds and crops. They also were introduced to CIMMYT’s work enhancing nutrition, food safety and processing quality in the seed health labs and about sustainable intensification to improve rural livelihoods.

To conclude, attachés discussed the current priorities of their embassies and potential collaborations between their embassies in Mexico and CIMMYT.

Farming Systems Intensification in South Asia

Written by on July 7, 2016. Posted in News.

WAGENINGEN, Netherlands — Although agriculture in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia, heartland of the Green Revolution, is essential to the food security and livelihoods of smallholder farmers, it is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change variability. To cope with climate change variability and impacts, several climate-smart agricultural practices (CSAPs) have proved to increase crop productivity, resilience and adaptive capacity in the region’s agro-ecological zones. However, farmers’ perceptions of climate vulnerability and their response to CSAPs vary with their biophysical and socioeconomic circumstances, which can limit technology targeting and large-scale adoption by a diversity of farmers. Research aimed at understanding farming systems level opportunities and challenges has been conducted in order to promote sustainable agricultural intensification and develop a portfolio of CSAPs adapted to local conditions and diverse farm typologies.

With a similar objective, a workshop on farming systems analysis titled “Quantitative tools to explore future farming systems options and formalize trade-offs and synergies for their sustainable intensification in South Asia” was held at Wageningen University (WUR), The Netherlands, on 5-7 July 2016, under the aegis of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR). Students, scientists and professors from ICAR, WUR, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), CIMMYT, the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), and state agriculture universities India participated in the event, which was jointly coordinated by Santiago López and M.L. Jat, CIMMYT, and Jeroen Groot, WUR.

Santiago Lopez welcomed the participants and mentioned the workshop was aimed at promoting, among other things, an understanding of farming systems modeling and its scope in smallholder systems of South Asia; sharing advances on the parametrization of FarmDesign models; sharing results of research undertaken by WUR students on applying quantitative systems analysis in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (Bihar, India); and promoting the exchange of ideas among participants and experts from advanced research institutes on future research and collaboration opportunities.

Bruno Gerard, Director of CIMMYT’s Sustainable Intensification Program, highlighted the role farm level analysis plays in the program. Adam Komarek, IFPRI, talked about conservation agriculture and its role in increasing farm profits and reducing risks in western China. M.L. Jat provided his insights on how to promote large-scale adoption across Asia, while Gideon Kruseman from CIMMYT, Mexico, made a presentation on bio-economic modeling.

Jeroen Groot (WUR, FSE) gave a quick overview of FarmDesign and Fuzzy Cognitive mapping tools, while J.P. Tetrawal and H. S. Jat described how they applied the FarmDesign tool at two sites: Kota (India) and Karnal (India). A.K. Prusty and Vipin Kumar, ICAR-Indian Institute of Farming Systems Research (ICAR-IIFSR), described activities being undertaken on integrated farming systems by ICAR-IIFSR and presented the results of FarmDesign analyses.

Challenges faced during FarmDesign parameterization and interpretation were presented by the participants and solutions were discussed. A visit to the computer lab of WUR’s Farming Systems Ecology (FSE) provided hands-on experience in applying FarmDesign. At a debugging session, participants were helped by the expertise of resource persons and helped each other learn specific applications of FarmDesign.

At a planning session aimed at exploring project options, it was decided that a FarmDesign user group should be created for exchanging ideas and helping each other address issues related to the application of FarmDesign. A workshop will be held in India in November, 2016, to review the progress of the work being carried out, explore funding opportunities, and establish a faculty exchange program for capacity building and skill development.

Making Farming Profitable: Scaling Climate-Smart Agriculture through Business Model Innovations

Written by on July 4, 2016. Posted in News.

WAGENINGEN, Netherlands — Agriculture is not considered a profit making venture by the farming community. Emerging challenges of climate change hinder growth and make it necessary to disseminate and promote the adoption of technological advances among farmers. Today it is vital not only to increase productivity but also ensure resource sustainability. Hence persuading farmers to adopt climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices is critical for sustainably producing higher returns.

Under the aegis of the CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), CIMMYT and Wageningen University (WUR), The Netherlands, undertook activities to develop and scale innovative CSA business models at climate-smart village (CSV) sites in South Asia. To consolidate the work done and plan future activities, a workshop titled “Climate Smart Agriculture: Business modeling and innovation platforms for scaling” was held at WUR on 4 July 2016. Twenty-five participants from CIMMYT, India’s NARS (ICAR, SAU), WUR, KIT and private organizations attended the session.

Setting the objectives and context of the workshop, M.L. Jat, CIMMYT, and Annemarie Groot, Alterra, welcomed the participants. During a brainstorming session on climate smart agriculture as a business model and on how to use innovative platforms to promote it, participants expressed their views and improved their understanding of the issues. Building on the input of participants, Jaclyn Rooker (WUR) provided an introduction to business models and value systems, using the case of the Happy Seeder in Punjab, India, as an example.

The issue of commercialization in agriculture was discussed by participants. The scope and opportunities for developing a business model and addressing challenges to business model innovations were discussed in detail. Local innovation platforms and the success of laser land leveling in India were presented by M.L. Jat, CIMMYT, South Asia, to illustrate how technology adoption can impact livelihoods. “Opportunities for new business models and local innovation platforms need to be further explored,” stated Jat.

Annemarie Groot presented an overview of innovation platforms for business development and scaling and the research undertaken on these subjects. The meeting concluded with a discussion on the challenges of future research on business modeling and innovation platforms for scaling CSA. By sharing work experiences and engaging in participatory planning, workshop participants succeeded in finding ways to change the mindset of farmers while providing necessary support and guidance.

Climate smart agriculture workshop participants. Photo: CIMMYT

Agricultural Innovation Systems: what do they mean to the work we do?

Written by on April 25, 2013. Posted in Features.

On daily basis, we interact with farmers, extension workers, researchers, seed companies, government officials, and many others. Our work would not be possible without these actors, many of whom focus on bringing new products, new processes, new policies, and new forms of organization into economic use. In their attempts to bring about change in agriculture, these multiple stakeholders are all part of what may be seen as agricultural innovation systems (AIS). However, CIMMYT’s engagement with AIS and its role within innovation platforms was not discussed more closely until recently. To review CIMMYT’s role and current approach to the AIS framework, summarize what has been done, and touch upon future plans, CRP MAIZE, the Global Conservation Agriculture Program (GCAP), and the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) organized a workshop on “Agricultural Innovation Systems: what does it mean to the work we do?” The day-long event took place at CIMMYT-El Batán on 11 April 2013; it was attended by over 30 participants from several CIMMYT departments, programs, and regional offices, and facilitated by Remco Mur and Mariana Wongtschowski from KIT.

What led to this cooperation between KIT and CRP MAIZE? When presented with the challenges of CRP MAIZE, such as lifting 10 million people out of extreme poverty in 10 years, David Watson, CRP MAIZE program manager, realized that innovations systems and innovation platforms are often seen as key in achieving these high-aiming goals. “I looked on the ground, but there was no explicit agricultural innovation expertise,” Watson said, explaining why CRP MAIZE contacted KIT to take stock of innovation platform structures and operation processes in CRP MAIZE projects, and suggest ways to strengthen the AIS approach and multi-stakeholder interaction structures.

Wongtschowski presented some of the KIT report findings. Addressing the strong technology focus of CIMMYT, she stressed that innovation is not only about developing technology, but also about setting up mechanisms that would put the technology into practice. “Innovation emerges from interaction,” Wongtschowski added, casting more light on the potential role of CIMMYT, “and while researchers may play a role, their role isn’t the most important one.” Jens Andersson, CIMMYT innovation systems scientist based in Zimbabwe, provided a reflection on the KIT report focusing on the implications of adopting an AIS framework for CIMMYT’s organization of research and its partnerships. “At CIMMYT, we look at innovation platforms as a means to reach impact at scale, or as a vehicle for technology transfer,” he said; but, as the report states, feedback loops from farmers and other stakeholders back to the researchers are often missing. At the same time, innovation platforms play a key role in articulating demand for research within the AIS framework. Yet, as Andersson pointed out, there are a number of problematic assumptions about how stakeholders interact within such platforms. For example, it is generally assumed that once an innovation platform has been established, stakeholders can voice their demands. “We have to be wary of those who talk very little,” Andersson said, alluding to the often silent majority of women farmers in meetings. “They might talk little because they can’t express their ideas,” he explained, pointing to the continued role of research in identifying demand. Then he followed with a photograph from first-year on-farm trial plots under conventional ridgeand- tillage and conservation agriculture in southern Africa. Against all expectation, the maize on the conservation agriculture plot was significantly taller than the conventionally grown maize, despite the same fertilizer regime and the absence of soil cover and nitrogen-mineralizing soil tillage in the conservation agriculture treatment. Behind this mystery lies another assumption about stakeholder participation: are farmers participating in researchers’ field trials because of their keen interest in a technology package, or do they have other reasons? In this case, the trialhosting farmer ‘helped’ the researcher by deliberately planting the conventional treatment late so that the researcher’s treatment would look better. The farmer sought to secure the farm inputs supplied to him also for next season. In this area, farmers’ biggest struggle is to source expensive inputs, notably fertilizer, and the input-supported trials of the researcher provided an opportunity. Farmer participation was thus motivated by a constraint beyond the field scale. “If we don’t research and understand how the wider system works, we can’t effectively introduce new technologies,” Andersson concluded his argument for a system-oriented research.

The workshop’s morning section was wrapped up with a group discussion on the changes necessary for successful innovation. Participants discussed and presented their ideas on what could be improved in our daily work regarding AIS. One question recurred several times during the lively discussions: is it our role to always be the facilitator within innovation platforms, or should this role be carried out by farmers’ associations or other actors?

The afternoon session was devoted to presentations by Bram Govaerts, leader of the Take it to the Farmer component of MasAgro, and Michael Misiko, GCAP innovation specialist, who focused on innovation platforms and their components within Take it to the Farmer and SIMLESA, respectively. While providing an overview of Take it to the Farmer, Govaerts stressed the importance, complexity, and history of farmer organizations as parts of agricultural innovation systems, reiterating Andersson’s previous statement on the importance of understanding the system. Misiko focused on the forms of and need for innovation platforms within SIMLESA. The foundations of SIMLESA lie on integration and partnerships of systems and institutions, sustainable innovation, and impact. However, the organizations operating within SIMLESA are often poorly clustered, sometimes completely detached from the commodities with which they work. According to Misiko, the next step towards further efficiency of the project is a higher level of integration of institutions within SIMLESA’s innovation platform systems.

Bruno Gerard, GCAP director, and Watson, concluded the workshop with reflections on AIS and their roles. “Innovation platforms and innovation approaches should not be taken as the next silver bullet to achieve impact scale,” said Gerard. “They are a mean rather than an end. They are critical for better understanding of social processes within farming systems and for putting technical innovations in context as they can provide important missing knowledge for researchers, farmers, and other actors, including the private sector, in a co-learning fashion.” Gerard pointed out some of the drawbacks as well; innovation platforms and approaches are often resource-intensive and difficult to scale out and scale up due to their context-specificity. “But they can generate valuable, more generic lessons on adoption, adoptability, and the way forward,” he added. “As researchers we have to be careful to intervene more as a catalyst and honest broker and not be too central in order to achieve positive long-term changes. We have to think of a good exit strategy from the beginning. At GCAP, innovations approaches are one piece of the puzzle within our systems research framework and impact pathways,” Gerard concluded.