SHAPING THE FUTURE TOGETHER: Transforming Agricultural Research, Extension, Education, and Enterprise in Development

The world faces unprecedented and complex challenges, including rising food demand, lingering food insecurity, malnutrition, obesity and rural poverty, all in a context of rapidly changing climates, dynamic trade flows, protracted crises and the need for better governance to address agricultural complexities.
Agricultural research has delivered great change in feeding a growing population, but huge
challenges remain, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, which together account for over half the world’s 870 million hungry people. Research is required to find out how to feed an estimated world population of nine billion by 2050, but this is no longer a question of production alone, but of poverty and equal access to adequate nutrition, in particular maternal and child nutrition.

The global trend shows that Sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific lag behind in total factor productivity growth. South Asia has performed better through the green revolution, but this is offset by population growth and there are concerns now that yield increases of some crops such as wheat are reaching a plateau. There is an urgent need to better harness agricultural research and knowledge to help eradicate hunger and malnutrition, alleviate poverty and ensure sustainable productive environments.
International bodies, in particular the FAO and CGIAR, have recognized these chronic needs and have set ambitious targets in their new strategic objectives for delivering tangible outcomes in each of these areas. Addressing these objectives requires the actions and interactions of multiple partners at many levels, towards mutually-owned outcomes that benefit the poor - in particular the 500 million resource-poor smallholder farming families of this world.