The overall goal of the research carried out by the CGIAR and its partners is to improve the
livelihood of low-income people in developing countries through reduced poverty, food insecurity
and malnutrition, and to foster better institutions, policies, and sustainable management of natural
resources of particular importance to agriculture and poor people.
Within this broader objective the CGIAR and its partners have a defined objective to address food
security in rural areas through productivity gains, sustainable agricultural production systems and
improved policy making at national and international level.
The basic entry point which has been essential to the success of the CGIAR and continues to be
highly relevant is the focus on the productivity of small holder family farms in developing countries.
While small holders can sometimes gain from technology developed for commercial farms it has
been shown that in most situations specific technologies are needed for them because of their
reduced ability to invest in capital intensive inputs and less emphasis on labour-saving
technologies. This is why genetic improvement for yield enhancement, disease resistance and
nutritional quality is essential for small holders. The use of modern biological techniques is a must
to have an innovation speed which allows to keep up with challenges.
However, while crop improvement will always be important for food security, the sustainability of
agroecosystems will increasingly be important. As water and land resources become scarcer it
becomes vital to enhance their productivity in a sustainable manner. The CGIAR has not been a
champion of a production system perspective so far with the exception of some work done in
agroforestry. It is therefore an area where major challenges are ahead also in terms of adapting
the human and institutional capacity of the system. Policy research and advising from an honest
broker role has proven its relevance not only in the last month, when IFPRI became a key
reference for all politicians put under pressure to respond to the food price crisis. The call of
Joachim von Braun (DG IFPRI) for a comprehensive agenda involving increased support to
sustainable intensification, better market access and also social protection to assure food for all is
a very important message also to production oriented agricultural scientists.
The more specific objectives of the research entities covered in this proposal are:
1) Producing more and better food at lower cost through genetic improvements
Improved crop productivity plays a key role in producing enough food. Its advantage is its direct
impact on farm level and the resilience of crop technologies which can be reproduced by farmers.
Once they have variety the farmers can become the owners of the technologies independently
from extension and supply services. Work on crop productivity is the core of the CGIAR centers
covered in this proposal (CIP, CIMMYT, IRRI, and UTA). Together they are the largest holder of
crop diversity for the public and the poor with regard to important food crops such as wheat, maize,
millet & sorghum, roots & tubers, rice,, leguminous crops, banana, and have an impressive record
of producing pro-poor technologies. The open pollinated, drought tolerant maize varieties for
Southern Africa are just one example.
Maize and wheat research - the area of CIMMYT's expertise - is an important path to development,
because maize and wheat are pivotal to nutrition, health, income, and environmental sustainability
in low-income countries. The demand for tuber crops to ensure food security and to contribute to
sustainable livelihoods in developing countries is predicted to grow steadily over the next decades.
In fact potato has become the third most important staple crops and is production is on rising scale
in particular in Asia. Because of this, the crop has been honoured by the UN system with an
International Year of Potato (2008) in which SDC participates actively. UTA is crucial for
implementing the crop agenda on Africa and expanding it to crops which are essential to food
security in Africa such as millet, cassava and sweet potato. In technical terms the research focus
across crops are
Maintaining and enhancing yields and yield potential of food staples (including biotic
stresses)
Improving tolerance to selected abiotic stresses
Enhancing nutritional quality and safety
Some of the cross-cutting research questions with special reference to small holders are:
How do we support the necessary tradeoffs among increasing the productivity of food and
animal feed to meet changing food habits?
How do we empower marginalized stakeholders to sustain the diversity of agriculture and
food systems, including their cultural dimensions?
And how do we increase productivity under marginalized, rainfed lands and incorporate
them into local, national and global markets?
2) improving sustainable agroecological production systems
Traditionally the CGIAR agenda has been focussed on crop improvement. However, the need for
sustainable intensification of small holder systems under stress from climate change and pressure
on land and water is urging. The CGIAR must adapt its agenda and the institutional and human
capacity to this challenge. Good examples are the work on the wheat/rice system in the Indo-
Gangetic watershed and work on integrated rice/fish/agroforestry systems. In these kind of
systems, productivity must be assessed over cropping cycles in a system view. Agroforestry
component such as fruit trees and livestock are crucial components of integrated systems. The
CGIAR needs to team up with other research capacities in order to live up to the research
questions posed by them. Some of the questions to be addressed are:
What is the contribution of diverse systems to household food security and supply of local
an regional markets and what is role of them under even higher pressure on water.
How can intensified small holder systems provide essential environmental services such as
water storage and biodiversity preservation? What are the best means to renumerate such
services?
What is the impact on gender balances of intensifying small holder systems. Is the
additional work load mainly passed on to women? How can women be assured of keeping
control over a fair of the products of their labour?
3) Improving policies and facilitating institutional innovation to support sustainable
reduction of poverty and hunger.
The dismantling of agricultural research and extension systems in small, agricultural dependent
countries is one to the most devastating results of the shift away from agriculture of the
international community over the last 20 years. Instead of abolishing them they should have been
reformed and put on a solid multi-stakeholder basis involving farmers organizations, the private
sector and public entities. National policies and international support must thrive at re-establishing
minimal capacities of national systems and provide the necessary technological and institutional
support to them. Increasingly the CGIAR resorts to technical cooperation with emerging countries
to provide part of their services in a partnership approach because these systems have grown on
competence and interest in international cooperation and often share climatic conditions with
smaller, agricultural dependent countries. Hence, institutional strengthening is an important
component of policy support. Spearheaded by IFPRI it is shared with most of the other centres
since capacity building is a core function of the CGIAR. Of much importance is policy advice to
national partners, for example for the governance of natural resources and the pro-poor planning of
infrastructure development (markets, roads, etc.). The research agenda can be summarized as
follows.
Improving science and technology policies and institutions
Making international and domestic markets work for the poor
Improving rural institutions and their governance
Improving research and development options to reduce rural poverty and vulnerability
