|
|
Featured Lectures
The Syngenta Foundation invites internationally
recognized experts to Basel, Switzerland and to North
Carolina in the United States for guest lectures on
subjects related to increasing opportunity and choice
for rural livelihood improvement in resource poor areas.
|
- A special Syngenta
Foundation lecture, on the World Bank's "World Development
Report.
[PPT 593KB]
Dr. Julie Howard, Executive Director,
Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa and
a lead voice for distribution of the 2008 WDR, North
Carolina, United States.
"Using agriculture as the basis for economic growth
in the agriculture based countries requires a productivity
revolution in smallholder farming." "Agriculture's
large environmental footprint must be reduced, farming
systems made less vulnerable to climate change, and
agriculture harnessed to deliver more environmental
services. The solution is not to slow agricultural
development-it is to seek more sustainable production
systems."
The Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa
was formed in early 2000 out of concern that the U.S.
response to rising hunger and poverty was increasingly
inadequate. Former Senators Dole and Hamilton, along
with representatives from The American Farm Bureau,
Cornell, Michigan State, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, Purdue, UC Davis, Ohio State, and
USDA are among those on its advisory committee.
The lecture covered;
- How has agriculture changed in developing countries
in the past 20 years?
- What are the important new challenges and opportunities
for agriculture.?
- Which new sources of agricultural growth can
be captured cost effectively, in particular in
poor countries with large agricultural sectors.?
- How can agricultural growth be made more effective
for poverty reduction.?
- How can governments facilitate the transition
of large populations out of agriculture, without
simply transferring the burden of rural poverty
to urban areas.?
- How can the natural resource endowment for agriculture
be protected?
- How can agriculture's negative environmental
effects be contained.?
- What is the role of the private sector in agricultural
development?
- What role for new plant technologies, such as
genetic modification of plants?
- Poverty Alleviation and Economic Growth
Objectives
Stephen A. Vosti, PhD, Associate
Director, Center for Natural Resources Policy Analysis,
John Muir Institute of the Environment, Dept. of Agriculture
and Resource Economics, University of California,
Davis.
His research looks at the competing interests of producing
more food for growing populations while conserving
natural resources and reducing poverty. Although the
value of vast, contiguous forests for biodiversity
and binding carbon to the earth is only now being
recognized, trees continue to fall on the margins
of the forest, largely to provide land for pasture
and small-scale farming.
What is agriculture's proper role on the margins of
moist, tropical forests such as the Brazilian Amazon?
Are most farm households thriving, or does increasing
environmental degradation lead to even more entrenched
poverty?
This presentation summarizes research that measured
the trade-offs and complementarities among three development
objectives - economic growth through agriculture,
environmental sustainability, and poverty alleviation.
It focuses on the decisions that smallholders make
in the face of changing policies and technologies.
- Technological Advances, IPR, Food Security
and Poverty in Africa
Dr.
Eugene Terry, Implementation Director
The African Agricultural Technology Foundation(AATF),
Nairobi, Kenya.
The AATF is a new and unique public-private partnership
designed to remove many of the barriers that have
prevented smallholder farmers in Africa from gaining
access to existing agricultural technologies that
could help relieve food security and alleviate poverty.
It is based in Africa and led, managed and directed
by Africans.
The AATF aims to promote public private partnerships,
improve access to technologies and know-how, strengthen
existing institutions and partnerships, and promote
efforts to create sustainable markets.
- Public-Private Partnerships in Agricultural
Research: Creating Global Opportunities for Poverty
Reduction
Dr. David J. Spielman, Public-Private
Partnerships Project International Food Policy Research
Institute, Washington DC, USA.
Empirical evidence suggests that agricultural research
can improve the lives of poor people in developing
countries. Given the private sector's central role
in agricultural biotechnology research, and given
the public sector's commitment to pro-poor research,
there is a need for greater collaboration between
the sectors - collaboration to bring new poverty-reducing
technologies to small-scale, resource poor farmers
in developing countries.
Two sets of actors in the international agricultural
research community can play an important role in this
context: the Consultative Group on International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR) and the leading research-based agribusiness
firms. Yet many argue that the willingness and ability
of the CGIAR and its private sector counterparts to
collaborate are constrained by fundamentally different
incentive structures; by insufficient information
on costs, risks and experiences in collaborative research;
by an inability to overcome mutually negative perceptions;
and by competition over key assets and resources.
The presentation provided background on the international
agricultural research system, the CGIAR's role in
this system, and thoughts on how these challenges
can build successful public-private partnerships.
- The Work and Priorities of the World Vegetable
Centre
Dr. Thomas Lumpkin, Director
General The World Vegetable Centre (AVRDC), Taiwan.
Vegetables are essential ingredients in the healthy
and balanced diet needed to support productive lives.
Vegetable production provides jobs and income, supports
agribusiness and food industries, diversifies farm
income and can be a valuable engine in support of
economic growth.
Founded in 1971 the AVRDC is the principle international
centre for vegetable research and development in the
world. Its mission is to reduce poverty and malnutrition
in developing countries through improved production
and consumption of vegetables. Headquartered in Taiwan
it has outreach activities in several Asian and African
countries.
- Developing National Biosafety Frameworks
Dr. Christopher Briggs, Global
Programme Manager, UNEP-GEF Project on National Biosafety
Frameworks, Geneva, Switzerland.
Discussion on the UN Environment Programme - Global
Environment Facility (UNEP-GEF) Global Project on
the development of National Biosafety Frameworks,
with goal to help developing countries meet their
commitments under the Carthagena Protocol.
The programme started in June 2001 and is a three-year
project designed to assist over 100 countries to develop
their National Biosafety Frameworks. The project aims
to promote regional and sub-regional collaboration
on biosafety.
- Improving the Safe and Efficient Application
of Pesticides: Lessons from Africa
Professor Graham Matthews, Director,
International Pesticide Application Research Centre,
Imperial College, UK.
IPARC was established in 1955 to train people working
in tropical countries in the safe and effective application
of pesticides. Training remains a major activity but
there is now a greater emphasis on research on new
technologies and the application of bio-pesticides. Professor Matthews' talk focused on a case study in
the implementation of FAO's Minimum Requirements for
Pesticide Application Equipment and training of small-scale
farmers in Africa.
- Biodiversity
in freshwater: challenges and opportunities
[PPT 3.12MB]
Anne Powell, Freshwater Biological
Association.
22 March 2005
- Insect
Resistant Maize for Africa (IRMA) Project
Stephen Mugo, Project Coordinator,
Insect Resistant Maize for Africa, Centro Internacional
de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo (CIMMYT), Nairobi,
Kenya.
- Insect
resistant maize varieties for food security in Kenya
Josephine Songa:, Program Coordinator,
Insect Resistant Maize for
Africa, KARI/RRC, Katumani, Kenya
- Societal
dilemmas [PDF 121KB]
Professor Graham Matthews, The
Doyle Foundation Scotland.
Present applications increasing efficiency Early generation
transgenic products offer new options -58 m ha Emerging
products- nutrition, complex traits Future directions
of science - genomic discoveries, gene regulation
|
|
|
