المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

In my opinion, 'from Foresight to Field: Exploring Regional and Multistakeholder Perspectives to Implement a Foresight on Emerging Technologies and Innovations in Agrifood Systems" underscores the crucial transition from predictive insights to practical applications in the agricultural sector. By integrating diverse regional and multistakeholder viewpoints, this approach ensures that the foresight process is inclusive, understandable, context-sensitive, and adaptable to local needs.

Emerging technologies and innovations promise to revolutionize agrifood systems, enhancing productivity, sustainability, and resilience. However, successful implementation requires collaborative efforts among policymakers, farmers, researchers, and industry leaders.

Moreover, by fostering a participatory framework, stakeholders can collectively navigate challenges, leverage opportunities, and drive the effective adoption of innovative solutions tailored to specific regional contexts. The dynamic interplay between foresight and field application accelerates technological integration and aligns it with diverse agrifood systems' socio-economic and environmental goals worldwide.

Agrifood systems globally are facing unprecedented challenges due to climatic variations, with Southern Africa and Zambia particularly vulnerable. Recent droughts experienced in the 2023/2024 farming season have exacerbated food insecurity and water scarcity among other challenges; highlighting the urgent need for comprehensive strategies that promote integration of foresight, regional perspectives and multistakeholder collaboration. In the context of Zambia, the intersection of these elements and the food system situation which is largely influenced by the Government's Farmer Input Support Programme. The FISP promotes industrial fertilizers and chemicals, contrary to agroecological principles and this context  underpins the importance of exploring multistakeholder perspectives with the aim to transform the agrifood systems. 

In terms of regional and multistakeholder perspectives; regional perspectives play a crucial role in understanding the unique challenges and opportunities within agrifood systems. For instance, despite the region (southern Africa) being hit by El Nino and drought conditions, the different countries have diverse ecosystems and socio-economic contexts which have been critical in tailoring specific approaches to address food insecurity. In terms of multistakeholder engagement. Tghis is essential for the successful implementation of foresight initiatives through collaboration among governments, NGOs, research institutions, farmers, and communities. Multistakeholder collaboration can foster innovation and ensure the relevance and sustainability of interventions. In the context of agrifood systems, involving stakeholders at all levels is imperative to address complex challenges comprehensively.

Attaining effective implementation of foresight on emerging Technologies and Innovations in Agrifood Systems requires effective collaboration and coordination among various stakeholders. For instance, Government as the main anchor of Agri extension and regulator of the sector needs to buy in and provide an enabling environment especially the policy framework. Similarly, CSOs and NGOs have a duty to reach out to the marginalised and excluded; to ensure they have access to information and innovations. The Academia and researchers also bring to the table a wealth of experience in terms of what has worked and what hasn’t. This is critical for strengthening shared understanding, implementation programmes. 

Operational Feasibility – A historic & Continuous Oversite Hindering Innovation Acceptance 

While I think the innovation process to promote smallholder farmers for enhanced agrifood systems, assure food security for smallholder farm families, and contribute to national food security, does an excellent job of determining what is physically possible and perhaps  highly desirable, I fear there is a major oversight in the process that severely limits the ultimate widespread acceptance of innovations across entire smallholder communities. That is, does the innovation process address the Operational Feasibility of innovations in terms of access to labor or mechanization to complete the innovations in sufficiently timely manner to take full advantage. Who in the agrifood innovation system is responsible to determine the operational resource in terms of the labor or mechanization needed to timely complete components of innovations, are those operational resources available, and if not, what are the rational compromises in adjusting the proposed innovations to the more limited operational capacity of individual smallholder farmers? How close would these rational compromises come to the current practices the innovations are trying to “correct”? Thus, are smallholder farmers really doing their best their limited resource will allow!! Does this analysis fall into an administrative void between the agronomists or other bio-scientists that develop and extend innovations and the social-scientists assisting smallholder communities? Is the historic but unfortunate assumption that this is not a problem, i.e. labor is infinitely available? Sorry but I fear it is a major problem. If smallholder farmers don’t have the operational resources to accept innovations, will we, as we have historically, done continue to badger farmers through various extension programs such as the current emphasis on Farmer Field School, pat ourselves on the back with the number of farmers we have trained, but ultimately see limited acceptance of our innovations, but attribute this to poor education or lack of motivation. Is anyone even conceptualizing the amount of labor required, availability of that labor and necessity of mechanization for smallholder communities? If we don’t address this issue I question the sincerity of the agrifood system development.

Do we need to look at the horror story of dietary energy balance? Is this another overlooked issue which should have been addressed decades ago when we first acknowledged that smallholder farmers were poor and hungry but failed to factor that as a major hinderance to the acceptance of agronomic innovations? Unfortunately, there is surprisingly little data on dietary calories available to smallholder farmers. What little that is available indicates most smallholders have access to only about 2500 kcal/day when to undertake a full day of agronomic field work requires more than 4000 kcal/day. If you set aside 2000 kcal/day for basic metabolism it leaves only 500 kcal/day to energize field work, that usually requires a total of 300 kcal/hour. The result is most smallholder farmers can only put in a couple hours of diligent effort per day, perhaps paced over a couple more hours with lower diligence. Does this limited available calories justify the typical 8 weeks of basic crop establishment?  How much is the potential yield diminished with an 8-week delay in crop establishment? Would that be greater than 50% yield decline? What does this delay in crop establishment do for most agronomic innovations, render them largely irrelevant? How much documentation do we have on the range of crop establishment or other crop management activities? How often is it assumed that basic crop establishment should take only a couple weeks and blame the farmer for being lazy if it takes longer? What does this stereotype of the lazy farmer loafing around the village in the afternoon while there is plenty of fieldwork to do and his family’s food security is at stake? Is he really lazy in need of motivation or hungry and exhausted in need of a hardy meal?

How often do our physically possible, socially desirable innovations to the agrifood system to promote more resilience, or environmental sustainability compel smallholder farmers to exert more caloric energy than they have access to? Thus, before we put too much effort on promoting innovations that are desirable but not operationally feasible should we take time to enhance the operational capacity of smallholder communities so they can establish their crops in a timelier manner that would allow them to more widely accept the innovations developed for their benefit. 

Enhancing operational capacity quickly implies access to mechanization, particularly for high drudgery basic land preparation. This could be through individually owned rice power tillers for paddy production as has become the common practice throughout most of paddy Asia starting some 50 years ago, or access to contract private owner/operator 65 hp 4-wheel tractors in upland areas as is the common practice in Egypt for at least 40 years. Please avoid the tendency to rely on communal ownership of tractors such as Public Sector mechanization units or even cooperatives. Under communal ownership tractors are usually sidelined after less than their 10,000-hour design service life. Just look at the line-up of non-operational tractors at any Nigerian ADP office. Is there any other way to effectively enhance the operational capacity of smallholder communities? How much will enhancing access to mechanization increase the timing of crop management, avoid the time delay induced potential yield loss, enhance food security and with staple food production under control lead to spontaneous crop diversification? How much of the food insecurity in Africa can be accounted for by the delayed crop establishment?

Does the shift from water buffalo to rice power tillers for paddy production in Asia illustrate the importance of mechanization for smallholder communities? This happened some 50 years ago concurrent with IRRI’s development of the original high yielding rice varieties. Since the shift was undertaken by the farmers without any input from the development effort, it is almost completely overlooked by the development effort which attributed the entire success of the Green Revolution to IRRI’s development of high yielding varieties and lead to an emphasis on “Knowledge Based Development for Africa while continuing to overlook necessary operational capacity. Yes, IRRI’s varietal improvement was important to getting yields up, but did not get the crop planted in the timely manner to take full advantage of those higher potential yields, this was the result the farmers on their own making the shift from water buffalo to power tillers. The shift more than halved the crop establishment time, made for comfortable double cropping rice. When small originally Japanese rice combine were introduced rice intensity increased to 5 crops in 2 years. It also allowed for diversification such as contract vegetable farming and aquaculture under poultry. A very impressive impact overlooked by most development efforts. When was the last time you saw a water buffalo working in a level paddy? Perhaps in terraced areas inaccessible to power tillers. Won’t Africa need a comparable shift to mechanization if it is to follow Asia’s agricultural development and food security success. 

If you accept that manual land preparation with hoes will take a smallholder community 8 or more weeks for basic crop establishment and result in total yield that will not meet family food security needs, should we recognize it is physically impossible to hoe your way out of poverty, perhaps concentrate so laborers for a great demonstration but not an entire community. Is relying on manual hoeing really poverty entrapment!!! Who if anyone is seriously focusing on mechanization? Hello Tractors, is making a effort but it is really a small effort. How can we help finance individuals in smallholder communities to drift out of direct farming and become mechanization service providers? Is facilitating access to mechanization a percussor to getting innovations widely accepted.

How about the efforts at environmental sustainability and resilience? Are they not more labor intensive than current practices? If so, where will that labor come from, and will the energy exerted be recovered by higher yields? How much time and energy are required to convert crop residues to compost? That is time to accumulate the residues, process them into compost and return them to the field? If the labor requires exerting 300 kcal/hr., it will take 100 g of maize or milled rice to replace the calories exerted. Does each hour devoted to compost production result in the 100 grams of additional grain yield needed to compensate for the energy consumed? It is doubtful!! If not, the compost production will be unsustainable. Perhaps the best approach is to let the goats graze the residue, they do a faster job of converting crop residue that would normally have to be burned for lack of draft required to incorporate it, to what can be easily incorporated. Is it basically the same process, a microbiological breakdown of the residue, either by ruminant bacteria in the goat’s gut or soil microbes. The goats will actually derive some energy from the process rather than consuming energy.

Ultimately, do we want to continue the current innovation practices that emphasis what is physically possible and socially or environmentally desirable, “count coup” on farmer being trained in these innovations, then wash our hands with little concern if they have the operational capacity to extend the innovation across their community? This makes for great “bean counting” publicity but not a lot of acceptance. I would classify that as an insincere and incomplete effort that may demonstrate the good intentions of the promoter, but with limited success. Or should we focus on the less technical innovations to concentrate on enhancing the operational capacity so the farmers can make use of the agrifood system innovations. 

For those interested in my comments you might be interested in an article I recently prepared for a symposium here at Colorado State University reflecting on my 50+ years assisting smallholder farming communities. After 50 years I am mostly retired and as such no longer behold to the system. Thus, being able to speak freely unincumbered by the politically correct party line, that may be hindering smallholder development. Thus, the article is more concerned with factual accuracy. It does go into more detail on the issues I have raised in the comment. The direct link is: https://agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/wp-content/uploads/sites/77/2023/03/Reflections.pdf

Thank you

Dear colleagues, 

The Agroecology approach is the adequate framework to promote technologies and innovations for family farming and effective FSN.

See our contribution attached.

Regards

Agrifood systems comprise a series of activities ranging from the primary production of food to the final consumer, including non-food agricultural products, such as food storage, aggregation, post-harvest handling, transportation, processing, distribution, marketing, disposal, and consumption. With these interconnected activities in place, the world’s food problems and challenges, such as climate change, conversion of new agricultural land, limited farmer knowledge of pesticide use and good farming practices, and weak institutional support for sustainability standards usually hinder the smooth running of the agrifood systems, particularly in producing and distributing enough food to meet the global population’s needs, can be quickly dealt with.

Exploring and embracing regional and multistakeholder perspectives to bolster a resilient and sustainable agrifood system, as mentioned above, is quite a challenge given the complex multisectoral problems, such as climate change, pests and diseases, and the ever-exploding population, in the contemporary world. But what are the regional perspectives when it comes to agrifood systems? Well, depending on the region, but I believe these may differ considerably; for example, the regional perspectives regarding the agrifood system in Europe or North America, where food shortage is not as dire as it is in Africa, where reports of hunger, starvation, and food insecurity are high. Talking from an African perspective, as described above, and from the current problems facing food systems in this region, the regional perspectives when it comes to the agrifood system should range from food (in)security, AI, food diplomacy, regional food distribution systems, and climate change, which all but hinder building agrifood resilience and sustainability.

With the above in mind, the primary concern should be to address the involvement of different stakeholders at a regional level, including but not limited to the state and non-state actors, NGOs, corporate companies, philanthropists, and subnational leaders to share ideas, knowledge, skills, experiences, values, innovations to bolster and promote regional agrifood systems that are equitable, inclusive, community-centered. The arrangement should embrace international partnerships and collaboration with global players such as FAO, WFP, World Bank, and others, as these come with knowledge, skills, and the financial muscle that enhances building sustainable and resilient Systems. 

Once a network of stakeholders is in place, the second aspect is embracing the emerging technologies and AI in agrifood systems at a national, regional, and international level to inform short-term and long-term food policy-making and investment. While building multistakeholder consensus to accelerate agrifood systems to foster investment priorities should be at the fore, embracing big data through data analytics, as different agrifood stakeholders can gather accurate and detailed information on various aspects of their activity, such as weather conditions, soil quality, water, and fertilizer use, crop yields and market information. In the context of developing countries such as Africa, this area needs more research, innovation, investment, and skills, mainly if increased efficiency and sustainability are to be enhanced by systematically using AI from drones and satellites, integrated field mapping, and field quality monitoring, and GPS-driven equipment with precision data delivery. 

All said, the use of AI in agrifood systems should transform the agrifood systems with new forms of data, analysis, and decision-making, particularly by integrating diverse data types ranging from food production, distribution, markets, weather forecasts, and other data that can monitor every aspect of the agrifood processes in real-time, thereby optimizing resources allocation priorities thus allowing agrifood systems to break free from the shackles of low productivity and usher in an era of sustainable growth and development. Moreover, from a regional perspective, such initiatives will bolster regional food diplomacy and coordination in agrifood systems, given that food (in)security and other related problems transcend boundaries.

In the context of food-security in the world's rain forest zones, I wish to draw to your attention the work of Inga Foundation(IF)'s Land for Life Program in Central America.  Since 2012, IF has been extending a model agroforestry livelihood as an alternative to slash-and-burn subsistence agriculture.  At the heart of the four-component model lies lies the agroforestry technique known as alley-cropping (a-c) (aka: hedgerow intercropping) using trees of the genus Inga.  This technique was proven scientifically during 16 years of research and development by researchers in the University of Cambridge, working in both Central America and Cambridge.

This series of projects (1986-2002) investigated the ecology of slash-and-burn (s-b) agriculture in rain forests and, taking lessons from the functioning of the tropical rain forest itself, developed and tested a number of bare-soil and a-c techniques vis a vis their ability, or lack of ability, to sustain the production of basic grains (maize and beans grown in rotation).  The only system to emerge successfully from 7 years' rigorous trials was a-c using Inga spp.; with the caveat that it be supplemented by small additions of rock-phosphate.  IF was founded in 2007 to implement these findings with target  families in northern Honduras.  IF's present program began in 2012; aiming to recruit 40 families per year to an integrated agroforestry model enabled by Inga a-c, but including less intensively-managed agroforest systems for the production of tropical fruits and fine timber.

Further experimentation by IF in this program led to the successful use of Inga a-c supplemented, not only, by rock-phosphate, but also, by Dolomitic lime and K-Mag.  This combination of mulch from the Inga and supplementary minerals yielding P, Ca, K, Mg, S and other micro-nutrients, has proved itself unique in restoring to fertility soils degraded by decades of repeated s-b.  We know of no other system capable of this.  

Soils in the world's tropical rain forest zones are typically highly-weathered and leached; such Ultisol-Oxisol soil types comprise two thirds of the available soil areas in these zones.  Achieving food-security and climate-resilience on them is paramount in today's world.  Today IF has just under 500 families implementing Inga a-c and related systems.  None have reverted to s-b since adoption and all have transformed their nutrition and livelihoods with these systems. The Inga a-c system has proved itself resilient to climatic extremes, including prolonged drought and violent storms.  In the 2019 drought, the only farmers taking crops of basic grains were those using the Inga system.  The deep Inga mulch conserved soil moisture beneath it.

A full account of the history of the Cam projects and IF's present program can be found here:

Hands, M.R. (2021)

"The search for a sustainable alternative to slash-and-burn in the world's rain forests:  The Guama Model and its implementation".  

Royal Society Open Science.  Vol. 8:  Issue 2.
The Royal Society.  London.
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.201204

Dear FAO Moderator,

Here is a proposal that presents cutting-edge strategies involving biotechnology, synthetic biology, and artificial intelligence to tackle the alarming decrease in honeybee populations. These technologies provide hopeful solutions to address illnesses such as varroa mites and colony collapse disorder, ensuring the protection of
both food security and biodiversity. We strongly believe that these advancements are crucial for the long-term viability of beekeeping industries around the globe. Thank you for taking our contribution into account in this significant discussion.

Warm regards,

J. Amin

Dear FAO Team,

Please find the contributions to the From Foresight to Field: Exploring regional and multistakeholder perspectives to implement a foresight on emerging technologies and innovations in agrifood systems call by the NICE project attached,

Best wishes,
Cornelia

Application for AI-Enhanced Smart Beehives Initiative

Dear FAO Moderator,

I am thrilled to apply for the AI-Enhanced Smart Beehives initiative.
With expertise in bee breeding, genetics, and AI, I am eager to pioneer transformative solutions in this field. By integrating AI into smart hive technology, my aim is to revolutionize beekeeping practices and enhance global food security. Thank you for considering my application and the opportunity to contribute to this important endeavor.

Warm regards,

J. Amin
Cukurova University, Faculty of Agriculture, Animal Science Department
Gültepe, Çukurova Ünv. No. 492, 01250 Sarçam/Adana, Turkey.

Dear FAO Moderator,

I am writing to submit my application for the initiative combating desert locust infestations. Having a strong background in plant protection technologies, I am excited to bring forth cutting-edge solutions through the use of aerial robotics. Through the utilization of drones, my goal is to completely transform the way we conduct locust surveillance and control. Working together, we can minimize the effects of these pests on global food security. Thank you for taking the time to review my application.

Best regards,

J. Amin
Cukurova University, Faculty of Agriculture, Animal Science Department
Gültepe, Çukurova Ünv. No. 492, 01250 Sarçam/Adana, Turkey.