Over decades, I have learned that innovation in agriculture and food systems often looks different from a distance than it does on the ground. Today, some of the most creative, climate-resilient innovations are emerging not from insulated laboratories, but from the regions experiencing the greatest challenges of climate volatility, biodiversity loss, and food insecurity.
What these regions need now is not more proof of concept. The evidence is already there. What is needed is sustained financing, long-term research partnerships, and the political commitment to scale solutions that are already working and ensuring they reach the people who need them the most.
For most of the past century, scientific breakthroughs were largely developed in temperate, resource-rich settings and then transferred, often imperfectly, to the rest of the world. This model delivered major gains, but it relied on assumptions of stability, including predictable climates, uniform inputs, and the luxury of time. Those assumptions no longer hold.
By 2050, most global population growth, in parallel with rising levels of hunger and malnutrition, will be concentrated in Africa and Asia. Today, nearly 500 million smallholder farmers, who produce roughly a third of the world’s food on just 12% of agricultural land, operate under these pressures across much of the Global South.
Click here to see more...