CGIAR – One Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World?

A new book launched last month at World Water Week in Stockholm sets out the challenges the world faces in feeding a growing population in the face of severe resource constraints and climate change. Authors of the book, the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems in partnership with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), emphasise the importance of adopting a new way of farming, viewing farms as interfaces between achieving global food security and environmental protection or in other words as agroecosystems.

With a focus on water, the book details the importance of ecosystem services for the direct provision of food and as the ecological foundation upon which agriculture rests. In a recent UK government report ecosystem services were estimated to benefit the UK economy by as much as £1.6 billion per year with pollinators contributing some 13% of the country’s annual income from farming. Not only are these services under threat from farming systems that degrade the resource base but from such global hazards as climate and demographic change.

The book, Managing Water and Agroecosystems for Food Security, not only details the challenges we face in providing enough food to feed the population and the importance of water for agriculture and a range of other ecosystem services, it also provides practical approaches to managing water for agroecosystems. For example, increasing water productivity across a range of food producing industries as well as market mechanisms such as Payments for Ecosystems Services. As the authors acknowledge, however, an agroecosystems approach will require societal and political change at the local, landscape and global levels.

Filed Under: 14 - Sustained by Water Tagged With: agriculture, agroecosystem, CGIAR, climate change, ecosystem services, food security, IWMI, UNEP, water, World Water Week

Appropriate technology to feed the planet

April 12, 2013 by canwefeedtheworld 2 Comments

As we know the world faces the challenge of feeding a growing population in the context of a changing climate. Weather events currently impacting crop production are only expected to get more frequent and more severe. As a new report published by The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation and the London School of Economics, entitled Feeding the planet in a warming world. Building resilient agriculture through innovation, argues this challenge will require an agricultural system as well as individual crops that are more resilient to future shocks and stresses.

The report also argues that current policies to achieve a more resilient agricultural sector fail to recognise the inadequacy of relying only on existing technologies. While overcoming global socio-economic barriers to accessing and disseminating such appropriate technologies should be a priority this in itself is not enough. Authors claim that we will also require “critical, game-changing solutions for building global agricultural resilience”. In particular new higher-yielding and more nutritious crop varieties that use less water while being more resistant to pests and diseases and more tolerant of weather extremes: heat, cold, flooding, drought. This includes the use of ‘demonstrably safe’ genetically modified (GM) crops. As the report states, “Agriculture will need every existing tool in the box, as well as the development of new ones.” [Read more…]

Filed Under: 7 - Appropriate Technology Tagged With: CGIAR, climate change, food, food insecurity, GM, hunger, innovation, investment, ITIF, LSE, research, resilience, science, technology

What we’ve been reading this week

February 7, 2013 by canwefeedtheworld 1 Comment

This week’s summary on the news stories and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

Feeding China’s pigs: Implications for the environment, China’s smallholder farmers and food security, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Global partnership launched to drive Africa’s agricultural research, SciDev.Net

New U.S. Biofuel Proposals Could Draw Heavily from Food Sources, Inter Press Service

Burkina Faso cotton output soars 57.5% due to GMOs –producers, Reuters

Community radio helps Cameroonians track climate change, AlertNet

Innovation is the future for Europe, Financial Times

FAO calls for governmental support for Agroforestry, Farming Online

Monsanto introduces another seed variety, The Daily Times

Ground water and climate change, Nature

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Africa, agriculture, agroforestry, biofuels, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, CGIAR, China, climate change, cotton, Europe, FAO, farming, GM, ground water, innovation, Monsanto, pigs, research, smallholder farmers, US

Incentives to Mitigate Climate Change

September 28, 2012 by canwefeedtheworld 1 Comment

In a new policy brief published in August 2012, the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)summarizes the outcomes from a FAO–CCAFS expert workshop on Smallholder Mitigation: Mitigation Options and Incentive Mechanisms held in Rome in July 2011. The brief deals not only with ways in which smallholders can reduce greenhouse gas emissions originating from their farms but also the incentives needed if they are to adopt such practices.

74% of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions originate in low and middle income countries where much of the workforce is comprised of smallholder farmers. Yet there are few systems in place in many of these countries in which farmers can receive a direct payment for their mitigation activities. For many smallholder farmers their priorities may be to feed their family and increase their income and security rather than mitigating climate change, which mean mitigation activities, must serve multiple goals without jeopardising the farmers own needs if they are to be adopted. [Read more…]

Filed Under: 16 - Reducing Greenhouse Gases Tagged With: agriculture, carbon markets, CCAFS, CGIAR, climate change, food security, greenhouse gas emissions, mitigation, smallholders, trade-offs, UNFCCC

The Green Revolution in Retrospect

September 28, 2012 by canwefeedtheworld 3 Comments

A new paper authored by Prabhu Pingali of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, details the achievements and limitations of the Green Revolution.

The Green Revolution was a product of investment in and diffusion of agricultural research and its largest success was that cereal crop production outpaced population growth, with only a small increase in land area cultivated. As examples, between 1960 and 2000 wheat yields in developing countries increased 208% while between 1960 and 1990 food supply in developing countries grew 12-13%.

Building on the work of developed countries to improve staple crops, the Green Revolution, largely through the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, took high yielding varieties and adapted them to thrive in the conditions of developing countries. Indeed it is estimated that without the efforts of the CGIAR and national programmes world food and feed prices would have been 35-65% higher and average calorie availability would have declined by 11-13%. While these successes sparked further investment in agricultural research and its delivery from both public and private institutions, the post Green Revolution period saw investment in agriculture decline.

As the author points out investment in agricultural innovation is equally important now, particularly if we are to ‘sustain productivity gains, enhance smallholder competitiveness and adapt to climate change’. Evidence shows the returns to agricultural research are as high now as they were during the Green Revolution and in a recent meta-analysis have been estimated at a median annual rate of return of 40-60%.

The Green Revolution, however, was not without its shortcomings. As One Billion Hungry states, we need a new Revolution that addresses the limitations of the first, a Revolution in which there is renewed international interest due to the recent food price spikes. [Read more…]