 Good morning, everyone. Can I ask you to take your seats and I'm sorry to ask you to stop your Fantastic conversations, but we do need to get started. I'm Johanna Nesseth. I Actually currently work for Chevron, which is an energy company, but I'm affiliated with CSIS I started our food security program here about five or six years ago So I'm staying involved and I'm really delighted to have you all here this morning and hopefully throughout the day I want to give you a brief background on how we got to this conference today and what we're trying to do with it it actually grows out of a series of a Really excellent projects that have been supported by the Templeton Foundation I see Chris Stoskey is here from the Templeton Foundation in about three years ago This foundation which takes on sort of big questions of ethics and humanity and science Asked the question and put out a sort of an RFP saying, you know, can Biotechnology can genetics promote food security for smallholder farmers and they launched a series of 14 grants CSIS was very happy to be one of the grantees. We did a project looking at sort of the regulatory and public opinions around Biotechnology and Kenya Tanzania and Uganda And we have here you'll hear throughout the day from a number of the other researchers The reason why I felt that this was so valuable is that We have now we're coming out with 14 new sets of original research around Biotechnology, I think all of the grantees acknowledge that biotechnology is sort of just a pathway for all kinds of ag technology and new types of approaches for tech transfer and skills and research to happen in developing countries So what happened as and I for any Grantors or funders, I would highly recommend the process that the Templeton Foundation took They had actually a head grant in Cambridge in the UK and we've got Patrick here from from that program They assembled all of the grantees twice during the course of this project The first time was about at the midpoint in the project and gave everyone a chance to Present what the project basis was what they were doing where they were working and then the second time just this April It was a chance to really start reporting out on what we learned and sort of test and ask questions about our research outcomes And as the US has embarked on this process around food security as a major development priority Having that new research come through I think can be really valuable because I have felt that in Washington since the partnership to kind of hunger and poverty in Africa used to do a big conference every year Talking about new ideas around food security and that that conference hasn't happened for a couple of years But it seemed really appropriate to have a working-level conference to talk about new ideas coming out of the field and putting Putting some new research out so very fortunately to two of the grantees of the 14 were from the University of Missouri Which focuses on a community of practice approach and they were Awarded a grant from the Mizzou foundation to hold a conference in Washington So we were really lucky at CSIS that they chose to partner with us I think five or six of the other project leaders are here I would note that I think 10 or 12 of the 14 are based at US land grant universities Which I think highlights the immense importance of the land grants in terms of not only our own US Ag research agenda, but the long-term development agenda and the importance of blending together US research institutions and those in developing countries so Ken and Willie and and Jerry will say more about what Missouri is doing, but they've been Wonderful wonderful organizers as you know We've got a great program ahead of us today And I want to just briefly now introduce Brady Deaton who is the former Chancellor of Missouri and he now is the by-fad chair and He is going to sort of kick things off in terms of how we look at meaningful knowledge I think we can all agree that there's a lot of technology There's a lot of opportunity for increasing productivity among smallholder farmers. The real question is how? How do people take up new technologies and new practices and put them to work so welcome? Thank you so much for being here. I look forward to talking with you more Joanna, thank you for the opening remarks and thank you for hosting us here at CSIS Welcome to everyone this morning to this conference and you're a wonderful looking group full of energy and vibrancy for the day So I know that given the program that we have in front of you We're not going to let you down in that respect I was asked to take just a moment this morning as an introduction to the day's events to sort of set a context and I was asked to define meaningful knowledge I suspect this is a group of very high-powered researchers for the most part that have worked with definitions and solid research methodology for some time, so I'm not going to bore you with details of that But we appreciate so much this opportunity to really bring ground-level research into the Washington discussion Those of us at the University of Missouri are very very excited to be part of the process Certainly from my role with as chair of by fad I see the relevance of this to what we've been trying to do with the land-grant universities With research-based knowledge from the field into the policy making that is occurring. I Think a theme of or a underlying premise of what we're talking about today is that too often We fail to understand some of the most critical on the ground features of the cultural and economic context of those participants and processes and the target clientele of policies that we have underway around the world That's fundamental. That's what this research project that we're going to be reporting on today will reveal some of the insight into this The focus on global on the small holders of the world globally The role they play in addressing food security and poverty I think it goes without saying to a group like this why this is so vital It's a critical part certainly of this administration's foreign policy It reflects a moral commitment of the United States for Certainly in the post-World War two era at a minimum and certainly it goes back earlier than that But I think that's important that we not forget it the political instability that we saw as a result of the very rapid food price increases in 2007 and 8 caught the world's attention went over 30 governments around the world fell due to the High prices of food meaning the reduction in real wage that occurred to urban and rural People those working in the urban markets as well or we're in a world We're not only as climate change occurring and challenging all that we do Ecologically the need for what USAID and others are calling intensive sustainability or sustainable intensification in the agricultural development processes That is vital to what we are doing We know that we need to understand a lot more about the populations that we're working with particularly the household behavior To be able to interpret how we can achieve Responsiveness at the ground level by small holders to the kinds of incentives and policies that we're undertaking that behavior is fraught with various forces of Decision-making and the balance of power that occurs within households within communities with those who are really opinion leaders and with Various forces of agencies and markets that occur around the world We know that the information communication technology shapes the way those households behave in the marketplace in clean collective participation in the in economic and social and cultural activities and Certainly it is at the basis of our commitment to try to deal with the human and institutional capacity development that can Sustain these short-run changes into long-run trajectories that truly change the nature of economic development in the world today and Lift up those in extreme poverty that roughly a billion people in the world today who still go to bed hungry Each night we for the first time in history have seen progress in Reducing those numbers and we want to see that progress continue So there are major forces at work that lend themselves to the results of science that you're engaged in To efficiency and management such as the reduction of post-harvest losses which continue to plague us at 30 to 40 percent of the world's food Supply so everyone says oh my goodness can't we at least Reduce that in half or more and get these immediate gains Well, we can to some extent, but there's no question as Johanna reflected in her remarks that ultimately addressing the challenge of feeding 9 billion people by 2050 will require the very best of science and innovation and genetic modification and addressing all the realms of the socioeconomic and climatic changes that challenge us in this process and We have so many examples far more than I could go into here in a few minutes this morning But I think it's very important that when we think about meaningful knowledge and Incorporating it into the policy process that we recognize the need for the Multidisciplinary approaches to addressing these issues and one of the sponsors of this event here today is the Mizzou advantage which is a University of Missouri academic set of programs Oriented toward multidisciplinary work that is problem-solving in its end product it encapsulates basic science through the translational aspects into the field and Fortunately, we have a number of individuals here today that can reflect that So one definition of meaningful knowledge that I borrowed from Corinne Valdivia actually or paraphrase some of her words that I'll share with you is Knowledge that is contextualized salient or relevant and from trusted sources Generated through participatory processes in order to build from local knowledge There's various ways of restating that of course, but basically That knowledge guides you into a full understanding of the social economic religious bases of community its structures and Responsiveness in the way that household operates in the way that that community operates with the broader global society We're in a period of globalization where we have the all that heterogeneity around the world Brought into a picture that we're trying to from a social science perspective Bring into an organized behavioral context that we understand and certainly those of us in agricultural economics or Economics generally know how many times we have failed to capture the essence of This behavior through the kind of aggregate models We use that leave us not understanding the distribution of income of the distribution of capital formation the challenge to households for nutrition and The dynamics that occur that change that and make it so important to the future generations That are the ultimate result of these processes, so we must focus intergenerationally on what we are doing and we must take a longer-term view as we Shape and craft these short-run strategies. They must lead to a longer-run perspective in fact we have seen abuses of this Misleading information guide major national policy in so many ways The book how Asia works by Joe Studwell was introduced to me by Jeff Ehlers in our last conversation I had a good look at that and it's very very interesting in the Criticisms that he brings forward and I think they are fair criticisms of the Misconceptions of World Bank policy for a decade that misguided a lot of what the international agencies did they led the US Government into a channel that did not lead to Productive agricultural enterprise We had it even within USAID as Julie and others know Julie Howard who's with us today Led the agencies away from an emphasis on agricultural development when in fact the actual fundamental model of economic change in Question required those investments in the science of agriculture and the transformation of that sector to make the kind of long-term Capital formation possible across the entire society Studwell does a beautiful book of capturing some very complex Economic theory that I spent the early part of my career addressing and put it in a context That we all can understand so it is a book. I'll recommend let me say To you as well You know, I learned early in my own life that economic transformations and innovation require that meaningful knowledge Let me just take a moment here. I grew up in a subsistence farming area of eastern Kentucky where Every decision you made had to be crafted very carefully To ensure that your family survived particularly had nine children like we did in my family and so The region the state and extension were very involved in trying to introduce new agricultural approaches That would help us all have more income. And so I got to watch how with strawberries for example pushed appropriately by a marketing firm private sector firm is very important the Extension service was there leading the way But for a household like ours we could not afford any risk of miss of Reallocating labor of taking any chance on the couple of cash items We had in our budget to ensure that we survived day-to-day Nor from the very large amount of food production on our own farm So our family never had to work with all there was no guarantee on strawberries an example I think that the work you're going to hear made depart from I think any major Transformation like this requires test plots and it requires some security system for the first year of innovation to ensure That's you don't lose your shirt the only families in my community that could take advantage of this were the larger farmers Who had extra land we had no extra land every inch was used for milk cows or our hogs or our chickens or our food Production or our tobacco which was the only cash crop we had along with a little bit of livestock So these were critical decisions and this is faced by small holders around the world today And that's the nature of the meaningful knowledge is tapping into that and saying how are those decisions make which decisions did my Mother make about which investments we undertook how to allocate our labor versus the decisions my father made those were very separate They're separate in every culture, and they vary a great deal, and we have to come to terms with that But it's clear that linkages into the commercial economy are critical the empowerment of women and the understanding of their role in a household and a community as important supportive partnerships with extension With private business with knowledge transfer and technology that can really make a difference in The outcomes of any kind of program that we're shaping And I've had the good fortune in my professional career to see programs like this in so many areas and to understand Why they can be so vital with work with banana producers in Grenada with millet and corn producers in Kenya with with Shrimp production in southern Thailand with Mandarin production in northern Thailand where I served as a p-score volunteer the mandarins there With rubber production and the question of can you integrate food crops into this which? Corren's very familiar with the new no sans research in North Medan supported by the small room at crisp. Let me say Revealed all these studies throughout my career have revealed have very very difficult the small holder response can be And how meaningful knowledge has to be addressed to bring this out to policymakers so that a major world bank project in North Medan has to account for the fact that small holders Dealing with rubber also have to produce food Maybe they can't integrate it therefore you set aside extra land somewhere and make it possible or else the program falls apart I could talk far longer than the program permits on so many of these examples which I've studied my graduate students have studied and out of which become The basis for some very very meaningful knowledge in the processes that we're engaged in So and someone mentioned yesterday we need a library of all this We need to think of a big data system of capturing all this data and making it useful to decision makers today and to the next Generation of graduate students that look at this so we will be at work trying to achieve some of that as well With that let me simply move to our two Two feature speakers keynoters that we have today and I'm going to introduce the first of those Corinne Valdevia Associate professor of agricultural applied economics at the University of Missouri I will then after introducing Corinne go to Jeff and his colleague for the next part of the program but Corinne is going to Deal with this issue of meaningful knowledge as it relates to the study She has undertaken in many parts of the world and she's had such an incredible History herself in leading projects in Peru and Indonesia, Bolivia, Tanzania, Kenya, Mexico, Uganda, and India Corinne that's really phenomenal and she is a native of Lima, Peru and received her early education and served as an associate professor At the National Agricultural University in Lima She fortunately came to the University of Missouri and received her PhD and since 1992 has focused on the issue of gender and has Co-edited a book on gender and natural resources with Jerry Gillies who's also in the audience here today her folk her research focus has emphasized strategies of Transforming transformation pathways through transformative change that leads to economic and social improvement in the livelihood of households communities and individuals I'm very pleased to be able to introduce Corinne. She was on the search committee that brought me to the University of Missouri in 1989 thank you Corinne and I've been very happy to work with her as a colleague over many years We're very pleased to have you with us this morning Welcome my technology ready Okay This is going to be new. I'm used to walking around rather than standing behind a podium And so I'm going to figure out and there we go Okay, great So I'm they actually put that monitor right there because I'm used to having stuff in front of me Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you I'm really excited about being here today because I think that This is an issue that we need to address together and we have a lot of wonderful People coming from different walks of life that can work together. I'm figuring out. How do we make? the meaningful knowledge that we are creating Something that's part of the way we do things every day in development And so I'm going to talk today about first white choice and voice which is actually Something that's key to us when we're working with smallholder farmers Then I'll go into lessons from science and translational research with smallholder farmers what we've learned and Finally, I'll talk a little bit about the Lessons learned from the work that was done with Templeton Foundation funding And South Africa and in Kenya and draw some lessons from that that hopefully will give you some a little bit of food to Chew on I guess in order to when you go into the sessions really look at what you do And how do we really do a? Collaborative process of discussions to make our knowledge even better or more meaningful At least that's what I am looking forward to in our meeting today, and I don't know who's managing time I tend to talk too much. Okay, great So let me go into why voice and choice. Oh, there we go why it matters for me it matters and I guess Full disclosure I grew up professionally with the small-rooming and collaborative research support program and I started as a faculty at the university in Lima Approach by professors from the University of Missouri many years ago to see if we wanted to do research together in the highlands of South America and It was an opportunity for us at the university to actually link what we were teaching and The work that we could do in the field and bring those together and also bring that reality of the context of the highlands to the classrooms In the other thing that's happened to me because of that is I've had the opportunity all those places that Brady Deton mentioned were possible because of the small-rooming and Cribs and the collaborative work that was done through the University of Missouri with many many countries in organizations in the world So I've walked through many shoes and hopefully that can help me understand all my limitations and And so I'm really always Looking forward to having discussions that augment what I know about the world And this is a great opportunity for that But we know that women and men make decisions every day in a context. It's very vulnerable For me it matters because I grew up in the public realm Working to produce public goods that are relevant and have impact in society So I'm always interested in figuring out how do we use our knowledge and our resources in order to improve the livelihoods of people especially those that are normally Isolated marginalized Which is a context that happens very much and we learned that especially in Latin America where a lot of the participatory research started meaningful knowledge as already Brady Deton mentioned has to do with having relevant relevant knowledge relevant to the decision maker In the language in context of the decision maker and coming from a trusted source We know that we need that type of knowledge and I'm going to talk a little bit about how we build it But I also want to pose a question is that sufficient We talk about necessary and sufficient conditions and economics And so we know that meaningful knowledge is necessary, but probably it's not sufficient for the knowledge to be actionable And so let me bring you to Latin America for a little bit because that's where We started working on participatory research with communities And that is a place where many communities rural communities actually live Marginalized from the mainstream public political context. So their voice is often not heard Here and I should acknowledge In this case, no, they have actually if you don't know now a climate and society project at the time It was a human dimensions project trying to understand if Climate forecasting had an impact How how can we use climate forecasts or not? And we took that opportunity to say hey, we've been working in the Andes and we know they're facing droughts They're facing frosts. Can we can we really put forward a proposal and we were able to do that and got funding to work in the Andean regions of Peru in Bolivia Looking at how farmers were making decisions under uncertainty and if climate forecasts new knowledge could be useful to them Rosita Here this is through the salmon Chris project. We were collaboratively with them In from 2006 to 2010 so we were able to come back to To these communities But before that I met Rosita when she was the one that welcomed us to her community when she was only 18 to talk about the Key Local knowledge that they have the indicators like the play it is they look at the stars and the conditions How well they can see them they look at other Physical indicators or biophysical indicators like the bushy a shrub the tola and how often and when it flowers So these are these is knowledge that has been generated for centuries It has been useful to farmers in figuring out what to do when some when they're going to plant when to plant what to plant So these these this is really really key knowledge that even has been validated by science These are very important indicators for the key security food security crop from the Indian region, which is potatoes and potatoes are Originated from Peru and Bolivia and the Indian region But now we eat them everywhere and even the the beautiful varieties of potatoes that you can see in the end These you're starting to see for example here in our markets in the US Okay, so why Rosita is important to me? Because she's a leader in her community. She started at 18 and currently she leads a women group She was the officer of community of her community. And if you don't know Communities in Peru are peasant communities that have a social structure and organization and are officially Recognized by the government. So she has a say in what can happen And so working together with Rosita, I've learned about their knowledge But I also with working with a lot of scientists that I happen to be sitting here today We've been working to understand the changes that these communities are going through because of climate change because of global drivers and From the research that we were able to do with the Samaritan crisp during the period that we were working in the Andes We actually found out that in the past 50 years That temperature has increased in this area. So when we started people were saying well, there is no proof Well science is now showing that there is a proof Obviously farmers knew that the temperatures were increasing Because they're actually changing the patterns of plants that they can grow at different elevations But we needed to prove it to the scientific community But it has a value because when you do that policymakers listen to you and invite you to talk And therefore you can actually be an agent of change bringing the issues that are happening at the local level So that's one one dimension. The other thing that we found out Is that besides that the climate change projections for this particular region are showing that there will be more drier springs when you're planting and More wetter summers. So this is going to be Contrast from what they're currently doing and you can see those changes starting to happen with the delayed rains and then extreme events happening The other thing is 40 degrees Celsius temperature rise by the end of the century, which is Pretty if you think that this is the mean this is the mean. Can you think about the extremes in that context? We also have found through the projections that there will be more soil moisture loss in this context Which is Interesting because the rainy season is going to be wetter But the soils won't be able to capture that humidity So there are a lot of challenges that are happening here and what I'm trying to highlight here It's mostly the fact that we are going through a lot of changes Rapid changes in areas in the mountain regions are the best place probably to see those changes Those dramatic changes both in climate and the consequences to the landscapes in the environment and the dynamics of pests that we We think about as they create a lot of losses So there these transformational changes that communities have to negotiate are many climate is one global markets and their indicators and incentives the environmental stressors in in the case of The communities where we were working the nature of the Indian we will was changing and the behavior was different But the farmers weren't aware of that. So through collaborative research We were discovering that together and that's the Royal we because I'm not an entomologist But there are others like government policies that can be a benefit to communities or can be a challenge to communities And what we're finding is when we look at landscapes in a specific context We find contrasts were in some places Communities are benefiting from the policies of governments like decentralization for example because now they know what they need for adaptation And so they're using those those resources to invest in that while in other cases the policies such as price policies in In other communities are such that Producers can't gain enough to stay in the community So you have a lot of out migration going on which increases the responsibility of women. They're staying behind to keep their Their identity which is to be sheep her sheep and alpaca herders. They call themselves alpacadas or pastoras So that's why it matters and there are many changes going on Science is Brady pointed out can contribute a lot To figuring out what we need to do, but at the same time we need to make sure that this is in the context of the decision makers So how science hasn't informed what we call translational research with smallholder farmers Scientists and farmers knowledge have two different systems, right? We tend to make assumptions reduce do our models do away with many of the the context realities and come up with solutions Farmers build our knowledge from experience from the day to day figuring out what to plant and when to plant So there is a there is a disconnect between the ways that scientists think in the way that farmers think So when we're thinking about creating new knowledge, we're thinking really about how How do we go about the process of linking the knowledge systems of farmers and scientists? To work in these particular Transformational contexts what we've found is that when there is a conflict between And that came out very clearly in the forecast research when when you see that The forecast are saying one thing, but the indicators like Rosita's indicators are saying something different The farmer will trust their own knowledge Because it's the knowledge that they're more familiar with on the one hand and the other one that was also mentioned by Brady That's very important. They can't take risks Their food insecure there may be making ends meet or maybe they're already stinting on food So the chances of taking risk with something new that doesn't come out from their experience is very low So that makes a case for the need for working together and trying to develop techniques and processes that allow for farmers to take those risks calculated risks and Going to just show you very briefly what we find for example in in the northern Alti plan off of Bolivia you have farmers with an average of two dollar a day income so pretty vulnerable with Only five years of education. So that means elementary education in average and Very small amount of land at the same time They're farming in a context where the communities the families in a community in a peasant community Actually tend to lose 80% of their crops to pests Or sorry 80% of the families tend to lose crops to pests And 50% experience losses due to frosts and 50% Experience losses of animals animals are what in these contexts. There are acid base That's where we save because banks don't work in many of these places and This is that a high degree of loss for Communities that are already vulnerable. So given the fact that they are in this in this context What we what we find is that their perceptions of risk are very high in terms of how Is this a very strong threat to your context? So we asked about climate. We asked about policies We asked about that that disease of an adult member of the family And how are those threats to the family and all of those tend to be consistently high Again, we're talking about high perceptions of risk and threat Which means your your context the science is showing it in it in a high level of Concern and threat the likelihood of taking new knowledge is going to be low I keep on pointing that because we as scientists always come up with solutions thinking Oh, I'm an expert on this so I can deal with drought or I'm an expert with this other area of Plant pathology and I can deal with this But at the same time what what I'm saying is that in the way we frame our work We need to frame it from the context of those decision-makers and not necessarily from our Offices at the university So So how do we engage in meaningful knowledge? There's Rosita again So one of the things that is important therefore is to focus on two-way Communication processes so when we talk about participatory research, we're talking about really two-way communications Sometimes participatory research is more extractive, right? So you go there get information from from the farmers take it over and you do your work No, the idea is two-way participation. So we are learning from each other because that enhances trust and trust is key in order for somebody to take chances on your knowledge and Then participatory Workshops can therefore be effective in communicating this and a pat It all in Zimbabwe also looking at forecasts in the use of this new knowledge found that yes Participatory research really is contributing to the more trust in the use of knowledge But we also have a problem When we were thinking just of the climate forecast example, the problem is that we have actually very many difficulties in Forecasting climate in very specific context and so there's no enough information for climate forecast for mountain regions Because of the fact that there is a lot of regional variability in the fact of the mountains So therefore what we've been working on the Royal we is I'm working with farmers learning about their Biophysical and indicators in linking the farmers with tsunami the scientists at tsunami that are Developing the forecast for the region so there is a connection a network being built to share the knowledge That's happening on the ground in local communities Another lesson for us is that we need to work in teams Teams that are really diverse in terms of knowledge and cultures and we need to learn to work in teams and to respect the knowledge of everybody In this particular case. I'm showing a picture where you have professors of the University of Missouri you have Neil Flora in the corner for example that was working with us and in this Research and she's sitting right there in the back But the idea is we have officers from tsunami of Bolivia officers from tsunami the weather forecasting system public and Peru we have People that are teachers at universities local universities. We have the farmers that are welcoming us to their communities and working with us So it's a very diverse set of groups that requires Actually very way formal ways of working with them and in this particular case in addressing the risks of vulnerable farmers We work to design with the community ways of working that can account for that risk Many of the participatory research that was done for example in soils was in fields of women that were widow Because the community decided that that would we could generate an income for that for the widow at the same time That we were experimenting together in farmer fields just one example in the particular case of the context of of Missouri and that Missouri of Bolivia soils are a key resource and we saw that we're going to be losing soil moisture By the end of the century so a lot of the research focused on gathering knowledge about the the soils experimenting with the farmers and in their context and with their designs and with our Soil scientists Peter Moravalli and the soil scientists in Bolivia to figure out what What types of techniques were useful and also connect students from the universities in Bolivia From the rural community and the professors. So what you're doing here is building human capital in Building a different way of working together So Translational research process in the new community of practice I want to talk about the two cases that we worked on because of the Templeton Foundation Funding that provided this opportunity and it was exciting for us because we were Able to work for Missouri in two different contexts a context where GM technologies have not yet been approved But there is a research going on and then it focused on cassava in a context with GM Technology mace is used a lot in production by commercial farmers in South Africa. So two cases South Africa in Kenya and in this particular case that the South Africa team It's mayors Gillis Hendrickson Dandala Schneberger and folk We're working with farmer groups Developing a community of practice and the idea of community of practice is a place where everybody is equal We're the knowledge of everybody's valued at the same time. And so it was a process for farmers. They had never Farmed in many cases to learn how to farm hybrid varieties mace and how to also farm GM varieties But especially it was an opportunity for them to be involved in the whole process learning together with the people in South Africa that were collaborating Together and so it allowed farmers to try technologies by themselves on their own after having training and undoing the farming practices and And the other thing is it made Stakeholders more aware of the constraints and what farmers are looking for so in many cases GM and hybrid varieties or seeds were okay, but they had labor constraints for example There they're that the whole process was a very positive Process in terms of working together But it was interesting that many of the issues that were brought up were more related again to markets and to storage So we go back to yes, we have the innovation We have the technology, but there is a whole set of context issues that are important These farmers want to be commercial farmers They want to have high yields and they want to be integrated into the markets as The commercial farmers that were the dominant there before them in our in the case of of Kenya we had a Process and Harvey James Bill folk Festus Murithi from Kari and myself Collaborated on this project and the idea was to learn from the communities their local knowledge What was their context and based on that figure out? What are the communication processes that need to be in place in order for? Farmers to learn about GM technologies So if they're going to learn a new technology we again need to go through the process of understanding their context so that we can create the meaningful knowledge that has That is understand and they're stood by the farmers in their own context, but at the same time learn about what their issues are So We started first with a lot of training Capacity building and the process of translational research. How do we work with farmers? Why are we understanding the vulnerability context? why do we need to learn about their livelihoods strategies and farming practices and and so on and And then we went to the field Working with rural communities mostly women the highest proportion of the people that participated in a project were women We're hoping for 5050, but actually there were more women than men in our projects We worked in collaboration with other stakeholders Carrie has in Tuappa research center Technologies and the processing of cassava for food and for being able to sell that so it's not only about consuming the cassava but also being able to process it and gain from the market and With different types of settings from the coast that was very vulnerable where food security is very important to new settings like Eastern province where there is there are commercial villages being funded by donors to try to commercialize production and In therefore going through this process creating a conversation among again Multiple types of decision makers including the farmers that are in that last picture We found from them that again as in Latin America And this is something that we all know that the context is very difficult that there is a lot of risks there are a lot of repeated shocks going on in the communities and the feeling of dread is pretty high and these are just from the coast from a Women group recalling the the shocks that they've experienced in the past and what were the impacts of those shocks and So our translational research process starts by understanding that vulnerability Context and insecurity with the farmers through participatory processes where farmers come in to their own communities there they decide where they want to do the meetings and And then we have techniques to gather information from women and men separately and identify Vulnerable groups and less vulnerable groups to see if the messages are similar or not We understand what the role of cassava plays for them in light in their livelihood strategies It's a food security crop definitely in the coast. Well, there are some Better off farmers women farmers. They're actually trying cassava for ethanol production. So there is there is a whole diversity of context We learn from the farmers about their preferences in their context the next step Is we talk with the scientists and the scientists By talking to the scientists I don't I mean actually the scientists that are experts in Kenya and cassava production to figure out what their take is on what farmers need and what This is showing To contrast and to get the feedback and then the scientists with other stakeholders Responding to the needs of what the farmers prefer which was more marketing more storage More learning about processing come back to workshops to learn about those at the same time that they're learning about genetic modification at what it means and Finally, we bring all the Stakeholders together to have conversations. So farmers are Elec representatives they come and be part of the table and I'm going to go through this very fast This is just the whole process But I think on the one hand is creating the minimum meaningful knowledge the context The context what does this knowledge mean to the farmer given their context do we want? Pest resistant cassava that may not have the starch that the farmers need or do farmers want that they want starch They may not want as many yield high yields because they don't they can't store it And some farmers say, you know cassava is good for us for food security, but we worried also about eating too much cassava because it's a starchy food and So that brings back to the scientist the reflection of really how do we build? Knowledge with our science that is relevant to that decision-maker And so it's an opportunity to learn but at the same time to build Capacities to build human capital to build the social networks and to build the political capital To be able to have the voice and choice of the farmers present at the table But there are in so these processes have Facilitated mutual learning and also have built trust But I think one of the things that I also want to point out is that there are always cave caveats That I am hoping that we will also discuss that we need to figure out how not to make simplifying assumptions that that's something that we all Tend to do because of the way we we work The context matters that for in some context that political economy actually maintains groups separate from the mainstream like the work that Carlos Ripalda and Astir have done in in Mexico with GM discussions amazed It's a contrast to what's going on in South Africa where GM is Technology that's not only Accepted by the mainstream, but also by that this black farmers that want to be commercial in a context where the government wants them to become commercial farmers And then there are many forms of participatory research And we need to also remember that because saying we do participatory research may mean that we are there to extract knowledge Rather than to build knowledge together And so creating meaningful knowledge for us means to it's important because of this context of Uncertainty it will it takes more effort than starting from from What we know But it's important when we talk about that new community of practice What the project in South Africa did with the project in in Kenya did was to not only do a project and figuring out how it works It's really to building together the knowledge Coming having people come together and in learn from scratch bringing their skills Bringing their human capital and figuring out how to link knowledge systems But also to figure out what are the strategies for that Knowledge to actually become useful in the decision-making process And I like mountains so this is the another one This is killing manjaro and I was speaking with farmers that I also talking about the glacier The glacier is no longer coming back as they used to so those changes are happening and are happening fast And I think I ran out of time because I wanted to show you a very short clip that if we have time I'll show you About the whole process with the women farmers and they really sing very well. I can't do that. Thank you Great. Thank you very much. They hope to a great start Our next keynote speaker this morning is dr. Jeff Ailers whose program officer at the Gates Foundation Dr. Ailers has had a very distinguished career as a research scientist focused on genetic improvements of Calpe a Native African grain legume that's consumed in over 45 countries. He's authored many publications dealing with various aspects of this including the observation that women farmers change the market to some degree by Seeing the value of green leaves and fresh shelled peas and that tilted it toward a more important component of the market At least in one country where he studied then then the dry grain. So I was caught I was caught by that Jeff. Thanks so much. Yeah, Jeff has a tremendous background in the crisp world or what we now call innovation lab world of Calpe production and he's focused on how that offsets how copies can offset hunger periods in Senegal and Burkina Faso and He's also looked at genetic modifications of copies for drought and heat tolerance and many other disease resistant varieties I was fortunate to be in Athens Tending the workshop of the innovation lab when he received the TMAC award of merit this past spring In their annual meeting and it was the technical management advisory committee TMAC Award that he received Jeff We are very pleased you're here with us today And we welcome you to talk on the subject of meaningful knowledge from small holders and for small holders a Gates Foundation perspective welcome Well, it's it's a it's a pleasure to be here and thank you Brady for the generous introduction I do want to say I think I'm following some big shoes after Corriando, and I don't do not have the development kind of background that that she has and to to partly Fill in some of my shortcomings in that area. I brought along one of my distinguished colleagues, Dr. Regina Copinga and I thought the best strategy when I was asked to talk on this subject was to actually Bring Regina in as a voice of an African woman who spent 16 years with the Tanzanian National Program eight years with the Potato Center the SIP potato center but based in in Africa and then the last six years as a senior program officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, so I thought she would actually be able to share some some stories even better than I could as more of a geneticist and breeder So I thought I would actually begin with just some high-level comments and then turn it over to Regina See if I can operate this right. I Might need some help here To change the talk Yeah, sorry for that little delay. So in my own career as Brady mentioned, I was more of an academic I was at the University of California at Riverside working with national program partners in In mostly in West Africa and mostly focused on legume systems And we were always faced with what do we do with our our results? And so I'll talk a little about that but and then also about one of the projects I managed before turning over to Regina, but I do want to begin with sort of a brief overview and a little bit. This is going to overlap with some of Brady's comments, but Okay Doesn't seem to Good, okay So I think the the central hypothesis of our workshop is that ag research is critical to long-term real economic growth and as Brady mentioned This is this is eloquently laid out by by jode studwell in his book How Asia works and this is a book that many of us have actually formed a book club around at the foundation and we're We're sort of reading it and studying it and it's helping us clarify some of the issues as we particularly look to African development and see if there's some parallels although of course today's Economy is much different than the period that say countries like South Korea went through over the last 60 years So I think you know for this workshop we're we're talking about You know small holders being actively engaged in the research process Which then will involve which which will then result in improved targeting of needs And and more ownership and buy-in and then therefore a higher probability of adoption But it's a tough business and I think this is one thing that you know has struck me over the years is how Hard it is to get adoption And I think part of that is the risk aversion that korean talked about But also just that African farmers in their small holder context being far from sources of Low-cost inputs lacking government support systems around finance for production Price supports for example and all of these kind of things are very important to have in an agricultural system Uh, you know most of the farmers in other parts of the world Actually, you're quite quite subsidized in various ways, but not the small african farmer So he's working in an environment that's unsubsidized and he's operating at at a low scale operating in in unpredictable weather environments and even unpredictable policy environments as well So I think all of these things, you know make it much harder to to adopt Technologies that will increase productivity And just to point out that you know the future really doesn't look Much better in terms of prices that african farmers will get for what they produce This is a Out of a report from the world bank, which looks ahead at commodity prices From 2013 out to 2025 and I don't know if you can if you can read all those numbers But for many of the commodities that african farmers produce There's really no prospect According to this forecast at least that prices will really increase And I don't quite understand that given all the talk about the need for food production and how dire the food Production will be trying to feed population when in fact prices are of many commodities are actually projected to To decline or not increase so I'm not sure how how that matches up But I thought it was interesting to point out that we're not necessarily in a In an increasing price scenario for us our smallholder farmers I don't know if you I'll just point out for soybeans for example that are about $550 a ton today In 2025 the world banks project projecting them to be about $510 so actually a decline in prices So you know whether this scenario will actually occur. We don't know but It's not encouraging Um And I think you know many of us realize that productivity gaps can be closed. There's often technologies that You know particularly application of fertilizers and inputs that actually can and improve varieties Which I've been involved with which can which are really quite basic in in their nature to get the big Big bump in productivity often requires small amounts of fertilizer improve seed and One or two key agrochemicals you can get a large increases in yield And and these are the kind of these kind of yield increases are the the what stimulates Rural development and eventually the path to economic development and I think Coriana and brady have both talked about the difficulty of adopting adopting in a risky situation where you don't want to put your your capital your eggs in one basket and Uh Then the other the other reason of course for lack of adoption, which uh, Regina will I think address Quite nicely in a very good example that she's been involved with personally is the idea of of the poor research Targeting and I think that's a lot of what uh, many of you are involved with So, uh Farmer participation in in development execution phases of ag r&d really is is quite rare Especially with the bigger development projects. I know many of you of course are involved in that There are a few, uh, european initiatives that I that I came across on the internet, uh, which reflects my lack of Knowledge of the area But more commonly a lot of what we fund Involved farmer participation more after the fact or after the design phases is done And I think this this is a key shortcoming Which which we need to do a better job at frankly Um And of course they they don't necessarily address farmer concerns We do try to involve farmers often after the after the design phase In terms of things like farmer preferred, uh, varietal selection And other other other methods, but they don't really become part of the dna of the project early on Some of the projects i'll share a brief example Do have some feedback loops with farmers and farmer involvement, but they don't necessarily address the critical objectives and the prioritization as well as they could have in many cases um so So the project that i'll i'll be talking about just very very briefly before i turn it over Regina is our end to africa project and how they use feedback loops to improve the research or or to Fine tune the research. Uh, this is a pretty big project run out of uh, vagan eagan that many of you may be aware of And the basic idea is that you can increase productivity through Through legumes and in in particularly by targeting improved inoculation getting farmers to inoculate with rhizobia bacteria And also then p fertilizers improve seed and and better agronomy And in the new phase, they're also talking about creating demand through market linkages so that there's a um a demand pull in the in the system And so uh, they in in this project, uh, they have what they call uh Feedback loops so you've got a research component a learning component that learns from farmers And then a uh delivery unit that takes what's learned from the m&e and redigest it back through the research And back to the farmers So what they what they actually do is in in the in the many countries that they work in in africa They they conduct thousands of farmer managed trials And they they're very simple trials usually with just four treatments a sort of a farmer control Added phosphorus added inoculum and then added both phosphorus and inoculum and by doing this at at many in many thousands of locations They can actually and and having the farmer manage and the farmer keeps very careful notes of of what practices he's done Throughout the trial. They can get quite a lot of good uh feedback about what's actually happening with with their with their technology package And one of the one of the things they found was that a certain fraction of the environments don't respond to the phosphorus and inoculum And what you see is in the bottom half under in the low yielding environments We're not getting a response to p and an inoculum And so the question is but we're getting very good response in Maybe 50 percent of or more of the environment So what's going on in the in the non responsive environment? So we have to go back then and and and and look more carefully with the farmers and find out what's going on And so this is a slide showing a farmer in his field one of these fields that was not responding to To the phosphorus and inoculum, but there was one plant in the middle of the field there And they they surmised that this is where a cow had walked by and Left a present for the soil and in fact Did did its fertilization work and But they were able to actually use that observation to To then figure there must be something they can do to the soil and so by doing a series of experiments They could some missing nutrient experiments they could figure out What that missing nutrient was and then fine tune Back through the research process that it was actually a magnesium deficiency that they needed to address in the fertilizer blend So that that was just one example where they've used feedback loops They've involved a lot of farmers the farmers are engaged in taking notes and providing that feedback through an M&E system and then Readjusting the the research program and the delivery package to meet the needs of the farmers I think looking ahead I think a lot of what coriand presented is probably really the heart of it And I tended to look at the tool or the methodology not the methodology, but more the the tool aspect Maybe a bias from my narrower background But you know, I see looking ahead that ICT will be a critical Part of some of the tools that we can develop to help us With the two-way communication with farmers and and we have some Initiatives around that Both to extend information and also to receive information So I think I don't want to spend any more time. I want to Turn it over to Regina to Take us to a real world example and I think You'll hear a nice story from Regina. So thank you Can I get someone to help me? Thank you very much Again, I will talk from the research side because I'm a researcher but Yeah And I will just talk about the orange freshly sweet potato Which here is known as yams So the for vitamin a the fish and the to get it into the Diets of of african farmers Okay Yeah, so the we we wanted to know how the feedback loop Can be enhanced if to ensure that at least these get into the Oh my god. Yeah, so the What I have what I must say that this is noted from Gates perspective But it is collection of of Yeah Yeah, it is it is collection of Of Of experiences from different studies which have been undertaken in the in the region in sub-Saharan Africa more than 13 countries And it is all about a sweet potato. We know that sweet potato for for Sub-Saharan Africa is the crop which is eaten but the Farmers or the consumers were not used to orange freshly sweet potato And so to get that new trait in the in the in the farming communities. It needed some some more Some some more effort And the goal actually is that at least the 50 percent of vitamin a in the in the food diets more especially for children and And mothers come from orange freshly sweet potato so Already the the evidence was there But the problem was how will this be accepted by by farmers and so The first the breeders introduced a lot of gene plasm to the region But unfortunately, many of these did not fit The consumer or coronary characteristics which are required are desired by the By the consumers more especially the women who are care takers So From the from the field This is what the women as well as men Those who are involved in in in growing sweet potato This is what they they wanted to see in that very sweet potato, which is orange At least the at field level There should be enough foliage To smoothen the weeds so it is all about your agronomic practices But also resistance to pest and diseases root yield attractive root Root shape and flesh And for at consumer level good appearance taste Stateness and low fibrousness Nobody mentioned about nutrition apart from the awareness meaning that You can't go into the field with just the nutrition message and anything is adopted You still have to put into consideration many other Characteristics so the participatory work Which I will not say much because the first speaker really mentioned a lot about Two-way communication is how best to to get These varieties selected And what could be the the mechanism? Yeah, definitely We are to the beginning. It is all about you spend the breed up spends the artistic for sweet potato spends about eight years And gets the good varieties which are high u d and whatever Getting them to the field and not much is accepted So the the whole idea now was okay participatory variety selection, but at what stage? So instead of waiting until you are about to release Now the breeders take into consideration and involve the farmers Basically more even at the population development Not necessary to breed but at least when they have a large number of varieties They can get the farmers to In in those localities to know what is accepted and some of them are removed and that one has helped a lot But of course This is backed up with the field days and the exchange visits by farmers to know what other farmers are doing So but at the same time we noted also that not every farmer can write Of course there are protocols where the farmers can can put in there in Their selection criteria and everything but not every farmer can write so in that in that in in in that circumstances the some of the Of the innovations such as using just the cards One is green one is yellow one is red The the the green card says this one is better than what we have the yellow says this is comparable To what we have and ready card. No, this is not the best the best for us And these ready cards and these colors Should be very well known and for us in Africa many people really Watch soccer and these are the same cards which are used So when it is green it is green when it is here it is here when you are given ready card here Yes, it's really bad So that one also helped a lot to to to get the farmers to to enjoy the exercise of even Putting their ballots in there in in those in those bags and it is from there Then the researcher is able to collect and the and Count those the number of cards, but of course remember farmers Many and women have different views, but to to capture their views The their views is better to know Yeah, even if it is green is it by men or by women and that one also contributed a lot because In some instances actually men don't take much They are not too particular not too detailed But remember at the end of the day it is the woman who is going to prepare the meal So if it is not accepted by them it will not go so that one also was part of Of the exercise So again remember in Africa. Yes, you have most of you have worked in Africa You know when you have a group meeting who we talk most Who we talk the best who talk and if there is a man and their husband If a husband says something there is no way the woman We raise our hand to say no Because that one has implication again back to the outside when the person goes back So to capture the information, which is very independent by using even these ballots like this The woman has her freedom to say this is what I like and this is what I don't and that one has helped a lot To to to to to to get to capture the voices of those who can't speak More especially the women depending the cultures in the majority of our african cultures Basically women if they are together with men, you will not find a lot of women talking much more especially contrary to What the women have already said so with this with this The Innovative technique it has been able to help us to the at least to to capture the The informal at least the voices of women And again, it is not just In the field but you also the researchers and the farmers to interact both in the field because There are things which we get in the meetings But when you are in the field, there is a lot of details which they will be able to To to to give you and so this one also has helped to to bring in a lot of Feedback and here now it is two way because there you are discussing in the field And I must say that yes most of you we we can't generalize that all of the ssa will have everything Prioritized or whatever in it also goes by subregions in some subregions some things in a matter and some not For for sweet potato in west africa. Yes, they say we are ready for sweet potato, but it has to be blunt like yam Whereas in sweet, but in east africa. It is all different. So that one also has to be you are so these interactions Between farmers between researchers has helped a lot And again for sweet potato again since this was being promoted for children Children also have a role to play in selecting this but remember These are not the children who are targeted by the nutrition group. It is the nutrition group Targeted us from zero against the mother is still is pregnant after two years But these children if you know in africa majority of these They are the ones who are caretakers of their siblings So if they select anything they are likely to influence even the young children Yeah And the the acceptability of different varieties is quite important and so consumer studies Has been part of this and with that what he has this Fade to the to the breeding Second now is that at least the the platforms have been Established in sub-saharan africa to capture To capture at least to do the adaptive testing in their localities And all these actually we have noted that majority of these With the sweet potato if it is orange linking with the nutrition group is quite important Because there are things which will not be captured by the agricultural researchers alone Again spreading the way it has to go out when this is a is done and the different mechanisms using schools using promotional shows and the Agricultural shows have also helped us in scaling up the The orange freshly sweet potato and what is happening now We are seeing now at least in many fields now There is some gradual inclusion of orange color Varieties in the diets as well as in the fields Which didn't happen in the past So I will not go into this but at least these are the key learnings whereby we have noted that For sweet potatoes is this still a crop which is managed by women the role Prayed by women is quite high Children also should be an integral part of this Exercise income generation is important because we can see although it was considered like a subsistence But now at least every household has some to to to to grow and some to serve So I want to thank you very much And we be able to to answer many of the questions in time was not enough to to put everything on the board. Thank you