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 defined the objective to address income generation in rural areas. Income generation is a key strategy on the road out of poverty. Rural populations must be in the position to buy crucial livelihood services such as education and health and also to complement their own food production with food supplies from markets. Income generation is indispensable to directly reach the Millennium Goals referring to hunger and poverty. Indirectly they are also important for health and education targets. The centres and programs which largely concentrate on income generation are namely CIAT, dealing with small scale agricultural enterprise development and informal seed systems, ICRISAT, focussing on income opportunities in semi-arid areas, ILRI, the centre focussing on livestock systems and Worldfish, with its competence in aquaculture and fish resources. The system wide program on livestock research is crucial to establish linkages with activities of ILRI with other centres. Participatory and gender sensitive research is a must income generating activities and the system has given itself the instrument of a cross-cutting initiative to make sure that these dimensions receive adequate attention.
The more specific objectives of the research entities covered in this proposal are:
1) Improve income opportunities for poor rural populations in crop value chains.
Farmer income is generated through the participation in local and international value chains. Small scale farmers have difficulties integrating in such value chains because of their low level of education, information gaps on market requirements, prices and non-tariff and tariff barriers for trading and other important aspects of value chains. The huge, poorly organized number of small farmers is confronted with benefit maximizing traders. They often create oligopolistic situations and manage to keep producer prices low. The CGIAR centres involved in income generating activities and especially the ones covered by this request generate technologies which allow farmers to compete in high quality markets, to identify organizational structures which empower them to increase their influence in policy making, and technologies which permit to produce fruits, vegetables and staple crops at competitive costs.
2) Pro poor enhancement of livestock products.
Livestock is economically the most dynamic sector in agricultural development world wide. The term “livestock revolution” is frequently applied referring to the booming sector of red meat production and poultry as well as milk markets. However, the revolution is mainly based on large scale, semi-industrial productions in emerging countries with huge negative impacts on climate change. Small scale farmers have hardly benefited from the development mainly because of the lack of research and development support and isolation from markets. The The CGIAR develops knowledge and technologies which allow small farmers to participate in growing markets for livestock products and especially fresh milk and small scale poultry. The work involves cross centre work on animal forage, on animal health and the enhancement of livestock policies.
3) Income stabilisation and enhancement of fish producing communities.
Fish is the healthy and low cost main source of protein for many poor people. In Bangladesh as much as 75% of food protein stems from fish. Even in fish-poor Africa, fish protein still accounts for 30% of total protein from animal sources. An important part of the fish available to the poor is produced by fishing communities which live themselves with less than one dollar a day. According to FAO, about 50 Million fish producing families are poor. Their principle way of production is fishing in public waters. The sector still obeys to a large extent to the principles of hunting and gathering. This is changing rapidly. Aquaculture has become an rapidly growing sector because of the declining fish stocks in public waters and the increasing demand. Small scale local fish production has proved to be an important opportunity for traditional fishing communities but also for farmers in remote areas to generate income. The CGIAR and in particular the World Fish Centre have set the objective to further pro-poor sustainable development of aquaculture in developing countries through more productive fish species, better fish and water management practices and better integration of aquaculture in other productive activities. The positioning of developing countries in international fish markets is good, since already by now, two thirds of traded fish stem from them. This is an indication that fish is a true market opportunity for developing countries.
From a production system perspective integrating aquaculture in farming systems is highly relevant since it complements labour cycles of agriculture and livestock and can be done in very small holdings. It is a first rate option for the sustainable intensification of small scale farming enterprises in areas with access to water. In irrigation schemes, keeping fish creates additional income and high quality food for the fishfolks.
For these three objectives, the research entities involved create information and technologies which are publicly accessible. Their products are hence intended to become international public goods which allow farmers and institutions in developing countries to overcome the limitations for their development in the field of agriculture and fishery. The outputs of the system are impossible to resume here. The number of benefiting partner institutions counts already in hundreds and the number of techniques developed is high. Especially promising lines of research with imminent large scale impact are vaccines against bovine tuberculosis developed by ILRI and new Tilapia strains developed by Worldfish.
