Half a Century of Innovation

The Role of Research in Resilience Building

Sustainable Development Goal 2 aims to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030. The world was already off-track to meet food and agriculture-related targets ahead of the COVID-19 outbreak. Following the pandemic, these goals are even further out of reach with up to 132 million more people at risk of going hungry in 2020 and an additional 9.3 million children at risk of wasting by 2022.

This growing food crisis is compounded by extreme weather and conflict. Agricultural production is a key contributor to the climate crisis. Put simply, climate change will not be slowed without transforming the way we produce, consume and dispose of food. At the same time, climate change is disrupting agriculture. Food producers face unpredictable weather patterns and growing conditions. This is especially true for smallholder farmers. We cannot end global hunger without making agriculture more sustainable and resilient to climate shocks.

These overlapping crises—hunger, malnutrition and climate change—require new integrated and dynamic solutions that transform food systems to improve incomes and productivity of smallholder farmers, deliver healthy diets for people and protect the planet. In order to achieve the 2030 agenda, we need to build on recent progress against hunger and poverty, made possible by agriculture research, including by reinvesting to meet future challenges.

Need some inspiration?

For 50 years, CGIAR and their partners have delivered scientific and innovative solutions to transform the world’s food, land and water systems with a 10-fold return on investment. They have trialled pioneering solutions to some of the greatest challenges caused by increasingly unpredictable climates and underscored the important role research plays in feeding a growing population.

Now more than ever, the world needs innovation and creative minds to support agriculture’s adaptation to rapidly changing climates and conditions, as well as increasing demand in a manner that is inclusive of small-scale producers.

Preview

Climate adaptation & mitigation:
Seeds for Needs; Climate-smart maize.

Nutrition, health & food security:
Bio-fortified orange-fleshed sweet potato; Genetically improved farmed Tilapia (GIFT).

Environmental health & biodiversity:
Smart rice irrigation.

Climate adaptation
& mitigation

With climatic uncertainty projected to increase in the future, agriculture and food security are more vulnerable than ever. Diversification of crops and varieties is one way to give farmers more options but often smallholders do not have all the necessary inputs or information. How can we change this?

Seeds for Needs:
citizen science and crowdsourcing

The goal of this initiative, led by CGIAR scientists at Bioversity International, is to diversify agricultural production and to make it more resilient to climatic shocks in several countries across Africa, Asia, Central and South America. The project does this by assisting smallholders to improve their seed systems with better information and access to adapted crops and varieties.

Seeds for Needs started in Ethiopia in 2009. It has since been scaled up to a further 14 countries.

More than 50,000 farmers around the world are involved in this project as citizen scientists. They evaluate and select varieties, providing feedback on the seeds that best meet their needs. Their findings are gathered by a mobile application which merges and analyses field data from various growers.

In India, the initiative has involved 15,000 farmers and resulted in the establishment of several community seed banks, many run by local women. Farmers in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have identified local varieties of beans which are able to survive changing climatic conditions following a severe drought in 2014.

In Nicaragua, farmers have learned about crop breeding techniques and how the growth of the beans correlates with changes in the environment.

As well as having an impact on women’s work and empowerment, this initiative took a holistic and innovative approach to strengthening local seed systems and subsequently crop production.

By working with farmers in the project, CGIAR was able not only to capitalise on existing knowledge, but also to expose farmers to more crop varieties, enhancing their knowledge about different traits and giving them the knowledge and experience to choose the crops that best fit their own needs and climate.

Climate-smart maize

Maize is the number one food crop and source of sustenance for several hundred million smallholder famers across Sub-Saharan Africa – yet the crop frequently fails when hit by the region’s severe, recurrent droughts.

‘Climate-smart’ maize varieties withstand climatic shocks, including droughts, and continue to yield grain in poor quality soils.

CGIAR scientists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center have led intensive breeding efforts to develop resilient crops which will improve food security and strengthen the livelihoods of resource-constrained farmers.

More than 200 improved climate-resilient maize varieties were developed by CGIAR in the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa and Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa initiatives alone. These varieties give at least 25 – 30 percent greater yields than conventional varieties in drought-prone environments and are now available across 13 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This initiative has strengthened the resilience of farmers to climatic shocks and enabled them to continue producing through periods where this would previously have been impeded by the impacts of climate change. Each breakthrough and discovery reduces risk to farming communities and safeguards the production of the world’s number one food crop.

Nutrition, health & food security

Good food and nutrition impacts everything we do, from ensuring our children are able to grow and thrive to an adult’s ability to earn a living and contribute to society. Without nutritious food, it is impossible to achieve good health and well-being but often people in low and middle income countries lack access to nutritious and diverse food-stuffs. But what if we could make the food people already eat more nutritious than it already is?

Bio-fortified orange-fleshed sweet potato

More than 140 million preschool-aged children globally suffer from vitamin A deficiency, a condition which weakens the immune system and robs 500,000 children of their sight each year. Researchers developed a bio-fortified orange-fleshed sweet potato variety which meets a child’s daily vitamin A requirements in roughly one and a half medium-sized sweet potatoes.

CGIAR researchers at the International Potato Center (CIP) collaborated with national sweet potato breeding programmes across Africa and Asia to develop more than 100 pro-vitamin A varieties that are adapted to suit local agro-ecologies and consumer preferences.

Promotional campaigns, cooking classes and the growing use of sweet potato in processed food products have increased consumption of this crop from Ethiopia to Ghana.

Higher demand encourages more famers to grow it, with now more than 6.7 million households in Africa and South Asia are growing and eating the orange-fleshed tuber.

Government programmes on maternal, infant and child health have begun to incorporate planting materials and training for sweet potato production and so have schools, enhancing uptake by families at risk of vitamin A deficiency.

In 2016, three CGIAR researchers at CIP were awarded the World Food Prize in recognition of the global impact of their innovation. This work created a powerful and affordable foodstuff to support the fight against preventable blindness in children and give millions a better chance at good nutrition.

Genetically improved farmed Tilapia (GIFT)

Fish is an important economic, cultural and nutritional resource in many low and middle-income countries.

Economic growth, rising health consciousness and increasing urbanisation have resulted in an upsurge in demand for aquatic foods, a demand which can only be met through the greater use of genetically improved strains in aquaculture production systems.

Aquaculture, a sustainable alternative to capture fisheries, is the fastest-growing food production sector in the world, providing almost half of the global fish supply.

CGIAR researchers at WorldFish began a selective breeding project in 1988 to boost fish productivity in both commercial and small-scale systems around the world.

Tilapia is an affordable source of protein, vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids that are vital for good health. Its unique characteristics make it an ideal candidate for genetic improvement through selective breeding. The improved strain can be bred more quickly and efficiently and is now used across five continents, accounting for more than half of the world’s tilapia production.

Because tilapia is hardy and has good disease resistance, it is inexpensive and easy for small-scale farmers to produce for food, nutrition and income.

This initiative strengthens global food security by ensuring the sustainability of fish production and supporting SDG14.4: to end overfishing by 2030.

Fish is important for health and nutrition, often being an efficient way to improve the quality of local diets, especially for young children and pregnant women who have high nutritional needs. This initiative provides a sustainable source of income, food and nutrition for small-scale farmers and supports them in adapting to climate change.

Environmental health & biodiversity

Agriculture is the main source of livelihoods for 2.5 billion people but it has an enormous impact on environmental health and biodiversity. It accounts for about 70 percent of global freshwater withdrawals and is the biggest driver of forest and biodiversity loss. How can we enable this sector, which is so crucial to global food systems, to remain productive while within planetary boundaries?

Smart rice irrigation:
alternate wetting and dryingng

Rice is the staple food for over half of the global population but many countries across Sub-Saharan Africa are far from self-sufficient in rice production. One of the key problems facing farmers in these areas is poor access to water supplies for land or crops, otherwise referred to as irrigation.

Rice yield is significantly higher in irrigated areas than rain-fed, but only 22 percent of the total rice grown in Sub-Saharan Africa is irrigated.

CGIAR researchers, the International Rice Research Insititute (IRRI) and AfricaRice, together with national research and agricultural extension system partners, adapted a method of irrigation, in Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal, called the alternate wetting and drying (AWD) method to help alleviate water scarcity issues.

Using this method, fields are subject to intermittent irrigation based on the water level in a field tube that is installed. When the water disappears from the tube, the fields are flooded to mitigate dry season conditions.

Across the three countries, this method was found to reduce the amount of water needed for irrigation by 38 percent, and increase rice productivity by 33 percent. The quality of grain was maintained, and farmers were able to produce more rice, even in the dry season.

This method’s environmental benefits are clear with water availability in Côte d’Ivoire’s dams increasing as a result of farmers using the technique. It allows farmers to increase their overall household income, reducing rates of hunger and poverty, by producing rice all year round.

Keep the dialogue going

These projects are fantastic examples of how research and innovation can strengthen agricultural production and protect smallholder farmers who are the custodians of half of the world’s food calories. We need to keep the conversation going to raise crucial funding for more work like this.

Start a conversation about any of these projects on social media using the following tags and hashtags: #CGIAR50 @CGIAR #OneCGIAR.

Read more

More information on CGIAR’s work and impact

Opinion: Today’s climate and food crises can only be solved in tandem

Read more about the Good Food For All Series

Hear more about CGIAR’s work on the Chefs’ Manifesto Podcast Series

Photo credits:
Alliance Bidiversity - CIAT ; P. Lowe - CIMMYT ; Anne Wangalachi - CIMMYT ; R. Raman - AfricaRice ; State India - ICRISAT ; S. Sridharan - ICRISAT ; Bundelkhand Shishuvendra K. - ICRISAT ; C. de Bode - CGIAR ; WorldFish Malaysia ; Jens Peter Tang Dalsgaard.