Download Global research program: Innovation systems for the

Innovation
Systems for the
Drylands (ISD)
Innovation Systems for the Drylands (ISD)
Anthony Whitbread - RPD
Agribusiness & Innovation Platform
Dr. Kiran Sharma
Markets, Institutions, Nutrition & Diversity
New recruit
Systems Analysis for Climate Smart Agriculture
Dr. Vincent Vadez
Monitoring, Evaluation, Impact & Learning
Dr. Kizito Mazvimavi
Digital Agriculture & Youth
Ram Kiran Dhulipala
What is an Innovations Systems Approach
• The challenge: bringing about food secure and sustainable
livelihoods in a complex and resource constrained smallholder
setting.
• An innovations systems approach to this challenge recognizes
that we should be primarily concerned with the conditions that
are needed to create demand for technologies and how
knowledge may be used to bring about such changes.
• An important component is that innovations most often emerge
from a systems of actors collaborating and communicating.
• Key to facilitating this dialogue is the use of systems analysis
using computer based simulation tools. In the context of
smallholder resource poor agriculture, common and widely
applied examples include:
• climate based- crop risk management tools
• household bioeconomic models approaches
• whole farm dynamic models
• Value chain models
• Spatial analysis
Smallholder farm livelihood systems are diverse
Agribusiness and Innovation Platform (AIP)
Vision: Enhancing agricultural development through
entrepreneurship, innovation and partnerships
•
Launched in 2003, AIP works towards technology commercialization and agrientrepreneurship development through PPP models
•
72 agribusiness start-ups incubated and 15 partnerships created
•
Facilitated USD 13.2 M as investment to start-ups
•
Handholding partner to 35 research institutions in India and African NARS for
setting up ABIs in those institutions
•
Facilitated commercialization of 331 agro-technologies for ICAR institutions;
1218 agribusiness ventures provided incubation support through ABIs
established in 22 ICAR institutions
•
Developed expertise in food product development, food safety, processing
targeting SAT crops.
Achievements in 2015
 AIP is promoting 16 FPOs on a self-sustainable model in three States of India
including Telangana through NABARD
 Promoting sustainable agriculture and linking tribal farmers to markets
 5 food testing labs in 5 African countries
 Established Intellectual Property Facilitation Cell to support legal and IPRs for
start-ups and partners
Markets, Institutions, Nutrition and Diversity (MIND)
• Takes over former MIP team and legacy projects (e.g. VLS/VDSA data,
Gender studies).
• Rebuilds a team focused more on applying analytical techniques for
understanding market led innovations:
• Households- Ex-ante and ex-post impacts of interventions on cash
flow, labour, nutrition, gender.
• Value chain –innovation platforms for creating market led demand &
creating local capacity to innovate
• Climate and market risk –Impacts, insurance, farmer behavior
• Institutions – Understanding social dilemmas for managing common
property resources using collecting action (economic experiments)
• Nutrition – understanding how diet and dietary diversity can be
optimized in resource poor rural areas – considering climate risk
Achievements
 India – New projects with NAFCC & GIZ funding/ SSA- negotiating new ACIAR irrigation and markets project
 3 workshops to est. use of modelling tools
 Innovation platforms have facilitated upscaling of high value crops in Rajasthan
 Gender - completed 3 cases on GENNOVATE in India, in collaboration with CRP DC AND GL
 MNDA (Minimum Nutrition Dataset For Agriculture) - piloted and ready for use.
incorporated in all socioeconomic and ag. Surveys...Achieved in collaboration with TCI, Cornell
Systems Analysis for Climate Smart Agriculture - SACSA
Crop physiology – phenotyping – gene to phenotype modelling– crop systems analysis
• Trait dissection for climate change adaptation
• Phenotyping
• Crop Modelling and System analysis
• Greenhouse gas measurement from rotations
• Climate/weather forecast and predictions
• Training and capacity building.
 Phenotyping platform enhanced with load cells for crop
water use tracking.
 Negotiated new funding (BMGF)
Crop nutrition
Achievements
Demand Driven Innovation: Trait Prioritization
Dual purpose sorghum;
stover/grain demand
“GRAIN type”
Sorghum bread
0.5
Livestock
per capita
Vikraman et al., in prep
12.3
“STOVER type”
Livestock feed
Monitoring, Evaluation, Impact Assessment
and Learning (MEIL).
• Assisting the Institute use modern methodology to benchmark
and monitor projects, particularly larger ones (HOPE, USAID)
• Impact assessment (IA)
• Manage internal processes of IA- contracting independent
reviews of larger initiatives (individual projects and bodies of
work).
• Document failures
• Implement recommendations from GB on internal reviews
• Utilise spatial analysis to track NRM interventions, water
bodies, crops, rotation, rice fallows….
Achievements
 New IA projects with SPIA and FAO (Kizito)
 Capacity development engagement (Falk)
 Spatial analysis revealed the scale of chickpea adoption- area tripled from
0.22 million ha during 2000–2001 to 0.6 million ha by 2012–2013 with
nearly 98% improved cultivars, with an average increase in yield of 37% Tracking of crop expansion-Chickpea in AP
over yields achieved with unimproved varieties (Gumma et al. 2016)
Digital Agriculture and Youth
Digital Agriculture/ Agri-Tech is already driving innovation in India.
• information delivery (downscaled market, weather, farming system, soil) as a locally specific advisories direct to farmers on
smart phones or tablets
• Risk management intelligence on markets, weather, banking or insurance sectors
• Business intelligence through harnessing information to a dashboard to monitor projects.
ICRISAT has a particular role to play in the following areas:
• How and what information and ICT might be delivered to create new services for smallholder farmers, value chains and
communities.
• Conducting research on the technical and social dimensions of digital agriculture: how and what information will lead to
practice change, efficiencies and overall impacts on farm livelihoods.
• Support the Institute’s effort to build new partnerships for enhanced development impact using ICT platforms and tools,
particularly through connections with leading private sector innovators.
Achievements
 Partnerships with T-Hub, Microsoft, TCS
 ICT accelerator being built on campus
 First intake of 10 start-ups in Nov 2016
Issues for ISD
• RP-ISD as a global program will need to be closely integrated into regional research programs as the
majority of funding is region based. Management must ensure that positions/resources can be effectively
shared so that overlapping roles are not created.
• Management should create task force with interdisciplinary team to develop proposals for targeting large
funding donors
• Mentoring of younger scientists is important for effective output and well directed science.
• Lack capability in several critical areas – farm-level modeling, climatologist to underpin efforts on climate
management; new gen crop modelers, spatial analysis skills needed in Africa.
• A close integration of AIP activities within the Asian and African programs.
Q1. Does an ‘Innovation Systems’ framing capture contemporary R4D thinking: is it broadly understood?
Q2. ISD must invest now with strategic funds to create opportunities for donor support – e.g. MIND Theme
Leader; Digital Agriculture; systems modelling capabilities.
Thank You