Principle 6: Prioritize research imperatives
Achieving sustainable agriculture requires intensified, continuous research, prioritising locally relevant crops, stewardship techniques, and adaptation to climate change.
• Conduct agronomic research on problems related to water availability, soil fertility, post-harvest losses, as well as climate change challenges
• Conduct research into crop varieties needed by the poorest and most vulnerable regions
• Promote farmer-centred research in accordance with their needs
• Improve productivity through the responsible use of science and technology
• Establish public-private research collaboration around integrated solutions
• Improve productivity through the responsible use of science and technology
• Increase investments from governments and business towards relevant R&D
Case-studies
Improving nutrition through fortified staples (Africa)
Pioneer Hi-Bred has partnered with Africa Harvest to form the Africa Biofortified Sorghum (ABS) Project, an initiative that works to improve the nutritional value of sorghum to help address widespread malnutrition. Pioneer donated initial technologies valued at $4.8 million to help with the project and additional funding has been provided by a grant to Africa Harvest from the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative, with a budget of $18.6 million over five years. Dupont’s technology allows for the cultivation of sorghum with higher levels of vitamins A and E, micronutrients such as iron and zinc, and essential amino acids such as lysine, while also improving digestibility. If successful, in the long term, the project could help improve the health of 300 million people in Africa.
Improving biofuels
To reduce competition between food and fuel and improve the lives of current and future generations, we need to make the production of biofuels more efficient and sustainable. Syngenta has developed tropical sugar beet (TSB) varieties that can yield the same quantity of sugar (or alcohol or ethanol) per land unit as sugar cane in half the time. This allows farmers to grow a second crop on the same land within the season, thereby increasing agricultural output and raising incomes. The new varieties also use about a third of the water typically required by sugar cane, saving almost 10 million liters per hectare.
Save manual labour (Uganda)
A study done in Uganda found that weeding absorbed over 50% of smallholder farmers’ production costs. It also occurs at times when the demand for labour is quite high and needed for many farm activities. Crop protection products such as herbicides and the adoption of best practices can help reduce this burden. In that case study, the farmers found that adopting conservation agriculture practices greatly reduces the labour they needed for weeding, sometimes by as much as 50 days worth of labour (from 73 days under their usual pattern to 22 days using herbicide, or event as low as 5 when practicing no-till).
