Innovations for Better Livelihoods

30/10/2012. Breakout session GCARD II, P3.1 Innovations for Better Livelihoods

Unlocking innovation represents a major challenge. |A diversity of approaches grounded on participatory action research have been developed including notably the concept of Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D).

Despite the conceptual agreement around these approaches and the promise they hold, there are also concerns, not only regarding how these approaches can have impact, but also how they can they do so at scale. Participatory approaches to agricultural research have often been judged to be slow and costly “boutique solutions” confined to the sites where they work directly. As a result their impact on poverty is considered by some to be marginal when compared with commodity research targeting many millions of people.

This Session explored these issues by considering how investment in agricultural research can be strengthened to increase its contribution to poverty reduction and improve the lives of those that more conventional approaches have failed to reach. In doing so the panelists considered the specific issues of partnerships and the role that they play in strengthening the quality of our work and the ultimate scale of the impacts.

What is needed for implementing innovation partnerships and producing the evidence and understanding required for impact in global, regional and national programs?

• policy context: R. Cooke (IFAD Rural Poverty Report 2011)

Stakeholders’ approach to AR4D

• A.Dave (SEWA – Women’s Rural Organization South Asia)
• A. Waters-Bayer (INSARD/CSO-GARD CSO Network)
C1.2. Direct investment in farmers'led research from GCARD Conferences

Putting the approach into practice: Establishing effective livelihood research partnerships for impact at scale

• P. Dugan (CRP Aquatic Agricultural Systems)
P3.1. Establishing effective livelihood research partnerships for impact at scale from GCARD Conferences
• W. Payne (CRP Dryland Agriculture)

Working with national innovation pilot learning sites and inter-regional innovation platforms

• A. Adekunle (FARA SSA-CP/CRP 1.2 on Humid Tropics)
P3.1 Working with National Innovation Pilot Learning Sites and Inter-regional Innovation Platforms from GCARD Conferences
• G. Thiele (CRP Roots tubers & bananas)

3 p. Download document of the Breakout session GCARD II, P3.1

INSARD @ GCARD: The Voices of smallholders in shaping priorities’

Involving smallholders in Agricultural Research for Development (ARD): Mind the gaps!

Hilary Warburton and Nicoliene Oudwater (ETC Foundation), on behalf of the INSARD (INcluding Smallholders in Agricultural Research for Development) consortium

The GCARD-2 Foresight paper (F3), “The voice of smallholders in shaping priorities”, raises a number of questions about why the inclusion of farmers, particularly resource-poor farmers, in foresight (and in ARD processes generally) has so far been limited. 

This prompted INSARD to think about how “the problem” of lack of inclusion is perceived, and how this affects the solutions proposed. We identified three differing sets of assumptions about the major cause(s) of the lack of inclusion of farmers in ARD. Each leads to an emphasis on a different, sometimes conflicting type of solution. Further, we see that focusing on national level processes would address one of the missing gaps in scaling up.

Gaps in perceptions of why smallholders have little engagement in ARD Some established players in ARD see the problem as essentially one of lack of capacity (skills and resources) within CSOs (Farmer Organisations (FOs) and NGOs). The CSOs do not organise themselves sufficiently to convey common messages from farmers; they are not sufficiently representative of a wide enough number of farmers; they are not able to articulate farmers’ problems as researchable questions, and therefore struggle to design projects; their monitoring and evaluation is often lacking; they have little involvement in recognisable foresight studies etc. The kinds of solutions proposed are therefore concerned with building capacity of CSOs to engage more effectively with formal researchers and other ARD stakeholders. This may include additional resources, stronger partnerships and shared projects – but overall, this approach retains the current form and processes of ARD, and tries to enable smallholder farmers and CSOs to fit better into the ARD mould. It fits with a project-driven research agenda where researchers and CSOs work together and need resources and skills to access funds and deliver acceptable results for donors.

Another view, often held by policy-oriented CSOs, is that the problem is primarily one of lack of democracy. Smallholder farmers are a diverse group with differing concerns; they also overlap with wider communities of rural populations and poor consumers (urban and rural) – all of which have legitimate interests in the future of agriculture and therefore of ARD. Current representation in ARD processes by a handful of CSOs or farmers is simply not sufficient to allow for real influence and equitable engagement. There are also concerns that some FOs represent only a narrow constituency of larger-scale farmers. The corresponding solution therefore focuses less on capacity building and more on widening the numbers of different voices within the ARD processes. An example is the Civil Society Mechanism (CSM) of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) where the numbers of representatives has been widened to include different constituencies (for example, women farmers, pastoralists) and regions. It may change the balance of power between the ARD stakeholders, and deliberately seeks to bring the unheard voices of the more marginalised smallholder farmers and others into the discussion. This approach is less tied to individual field-level projects and more towards support for networks and research agenda setting.

More fundamentally, a third, alternative world view starts with food producers at the core, and the recognition that smallholder producers provide food to about 70% of the global population. Therefore the key question is not: “What role could smallholder farmers pay in meeting future needs in food & nutrition security…” but rather “What role can research play in supporting and enabling smallholder farmers/producers to continue to provide nutritious food to a growing population into the future?” The problem is perceived as a lack of accountability and awareness of researchers towards farmers, rural people and poor consumers. Rather than farmers and CSOs building their capacity to speak the language of researchers, the research organisations have a responsibility to consult and account for their work in ways that make sense for farmers. This means recognising that CSOs have legitimate interests in long term prioritisation of ARD as well as specific field-based projects. This means more openness to communicating, fostering innovative mechanisms for discussions with farmers (for example farmers’ juries), and recognising that formal research forms part of much wider agricultural innovation systems. It also requires recognition that farmers do not tend to separate ARD out from other livelihood and development issues. Few African CSOs focus only on ARD; they tend to cover wider agricultural development and environmental issues. If researchers want to support farmers and CSOs, they need to be prepared to try new processes and to look for entry points on issues of concern to farmers.

Two way process

Of course, there can be overlaps between these views and the Foresight report refers to issues with capacity, democracy/representation and the need to see problems through multiple lenses. Many researchers are actively searching for new ways to partner with farmers, but we sense that there is still a tendency to expect farmers/CSOs to engage within the existing ARD context, rather than for researchers and other private/public stakeholders to engage within farmers’ contexts. It does have to be a 2-way process with more flexibility and willingness on all sides to allow room for farmers to influence how ARD agenda-setting processes are constructed.

Gaps in scaling up There are examples of good practice and productive partnerships between farmers and researchers at local field levels. At the regional and global levels, there are well-established ARD structures where the multiplicity of farmers’ voices struggle to be heard. But we see a huge gap between the local and the international levels. In order to scale up local successes and address the lack of democracy and accountability at the higher levels, we need to fill this gap. National level processes are some of the key missing elements. The Foresight study noted that national level processes are generally more inclusive, multi-stakeholder oriented than the regional or global ones. However, studies for the INSARD project identified a lack of coordination between researchers, CSOs and other stakeholders at the national level. Both studies noted that farmers/CSOs are mainly involved at validation stage and in consultations rather than farmer organisations/CSO co-leading the process. This is where more emphasis is needed, and where the INSARD project is focusing. By brokering processes that bring farmers/CSOs, researchers, public/private stakeholders together around tangible and priority concerns of farmers, there is potential to create spaces where a greater diversity of farmers’ voices can be included, research questions relevant to farmers’ concerns can be identified and stronger, more equitable partnerships forged for the future.

PAEPARD @ GCARD II

October 30, 2012, Punta del Este, Uruguay
Breakout session C1.3 North-South and South-South Collaborative Actions – Speaker Brief - The Platform for African-European Partnership on Agricultural Development (PAEPARD).

The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and the European Forum on Agricultural Research for Development (EFARD) through The European Alliance on Agricultural Knowledge for Development (AGRINATURA), joined forces in the implementation of the Platform for African-European Partnership on Agricultural Development (PAEPARD), established with funding from the European Union. Among the problems addressed by PAEPARD are:

• insufficient capacities of African agricultural knowledge organisations, at regional and national levels, on multi-stakeholder partnership for innovation systems; 
• lack of effective linkages between research, extension and rural development.

Download document

Blogpost by Nawsheen Hosenally, one of the GCARD2 Social Reporters.

From pre-conference meetings, to opening ceremony and plenary sessions, it was clear from the speakers and participants at the second Global Conference for Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD2), that partnership is the key if we want to improve livelihoods of smallholder farmers and increase food production by 70% to feed a population of 9 billion in 2050. But what are the partnership models that we have and what can we learn from them?

The conference session on North-South and South-South Collective Actions gave a good overview on how multi-stakeholder partnerships have been done in different regions of the world. Interestingly, partnership in Agricultural Research for Development has existed for a long time. Whether it is African-European partnerships, Latin America-Caribbean-Europe-Africa, or African Partnerships, the focus of these partnerships has been mainly on involving stakeholders who normally do not have a say in traditional research.

For example, in projects and initiatives like PAEPARD, CAADP-CGIAR Alliance and IRD/CIRAD collaborative platforms among others, it is not only scientists who are involved in research, but also other stakeholders along the agriculture value chain: farmers, researchers, extension officers, the private sector, academia, processors, exporters, input suppliers and others.

In doing so, each stakeholder contributes in formulating the research proposal that would benefit each one of them. But as simple as this sounds, it is not the case in reality!

From their presentations, the panelists highlighted that in multi-stakeholder partnerships, TRUST is very important, but is not easy to build as different stakeholders have their own objectives. Making all of them move towards a common goal is a challenge.

To overcome this, the innovation that was brought in the PAEPARD (Platform for African-European Partnership on Agricultural Research for Development) project was to introduce Agricultural Innovation Facilitators (brokers), who were independent from the multi-stakeholder consortium and facilitated the process of partnership. According to the panelist from PAEPARD, Mr Sarfatti, facilitators have had an important role in building multi-stakeholder partnerships in the different countries where the project has been funded and implemented.

However, during the discussions, two important points were raised: It was clear that smallholder farmers are involved in these initiatives, but how far are women and youth involved in these multi-stakeholder partnerships?

Regarding the inclusion of women, the representative from the IRD/CIRAD collaborative platforms shared with the audience that in their projects, a gender specialist/consultant was recruited and her role was to ensure that all projects that are selected for funding have women inclusion.

When it comes to youth involvement in these partnerships, it was confessed by the panellist from PAEPARD that to date, there has been no strategy to include the youth in the project, but since PAEPARD is moving to its 3rd phase, the suggestion that youths get into the picture can be considered as they can be facilitators or trainers in the project.

Taking the example from IRD/CIRAD collaborative platforms, whereby a gender specialist has been appointed to ensure that women are included in the projects, can there be a youth specialist to ensure youth inclusion in multi-stakeholder partnerships?

The point to take from the session was that multi-stakeholder partnerships are not as easy as they appear to be, but from the different initiatives taken in different regions we know that we can learn from each other, share our successes and failures so that there is no duplication. We can come up with a strategy that will encourage partnerships so that each stakeholder involved will have equal contribution and benefit from impactful research.

Research is important for food security, but now the time has come to innovate and involve more stakeholders in the process so that the outputs are useful to all of them!

Related:

Too much talk so far

October 30, 2012

Rodrigo de Oliveira Andrade
Latin America correspondent, SciDev.Net

On Monday, the session “North-South and South-South Collective Actions” promised to be a great opportunity to put into practice some of the tasks mentioned during GCARD2′s opening ceremony, since the session’s main goal was promoting inter-regional learning and capacities through mobilising and strengthening innovative networks to demonstrate and enhance their impacts on the Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D).

However, after the brief presentation of some collaborative research platforms, such as The Platform for African-European Partnership on Agricultural Development (PEAPARD) and also the Brazil-Africa and Brazil-Caribbean Innovation Marketplace, the institutionalist discourse predominated. Paulo Duarte, from Coordination of Technical Cooperation Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), for example, presented Brazil’s experience in implementing the Platform.

During his talk, Duarte said that this marketplace aims to benefit primarily smallholders with focus on agricultural innovation by the engagement of different actors involved in the generation of agricultural knowledge.

“The technologies developed by EMBRAPA were important for the development of Brazilian agriculture and there is interest from other countries to exchange knowledge with Brazil. The agriculture is vital for the economic and social development of Africa, Brazil and Latin America-Caribbean and EMBRAPA have projects in Africa to stimulating the ethanol producing and five other projects in different Latin American countries, such as Bolivia and Colombia,” he said.

So far, it the GCARD sessions appear to be more interested in sharing knowledge and their own institutional experiences.

GCARD: Using Innovation to Boost Farming

18 October 2012. VOA radio broadcast. Innovation will be the theme at the upcoming Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development. It gets under way later this month in Uruguay. The conference, known as GCARD II, will consider the challenges that farmers may face in 20 to 30 years, and try to come up with solutions now.

Listen to De Capua report on GCARD II

Professor Monty Jones, winner of the 2004 World Food Prize, will chair the conference. He says it will differ from the first GCARD meeting in Montpellier, France in 2010.

“This time it’s not just scientists talking to themselves; it’s scientists talking to the other players that matter very much, particularly this farmers, the farmer’s group, the NGO group, all these other players. Their voices are now being heard in agricultural research for development,” he said.

Jones is head of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa. He said GCARD has published a road map to “transform agricultural research” so it can have a major impact on development. It’s called “foresight thinking.”

“The tendency for most of us is to look at problems that occur today, and then try to solve those problems. This particular program on foresight thinking is trying to make [a] projection into the future, particularly in a world of climate change and associated problems, like drought and floods, and aggravated problems of disease and insect pests,” he said.

The GCARD Roadmap recommends a “collective focus on priorities” that has been determined by society and science; an effective partnership between researchers and farmers; increased investment; and greater awareness of innovation’s effect on development. GCARD II will be held in Punta del Este, Uruguay from October 29th through November 1st.