ROSA NL47 - Appendix 3: The IAASTD‘s Proposals

This article is an appendix of ROSA Zoom: "The Role of Agricultural Research for the Development of Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa" published in October 2013.

The IAASTD(International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development), a collective expertise effort that mobilized hundreds of researchers from many disciplines and all regions of the world for four years, reached the following conclusions as to the future of agriculture and agricultural research for development:

• Agriculture is multifunctional in its nature and operates within complex systems. It is therefore necessary to adopt an approach to agricultural research for development that is also multifunctional in order to improve the results.

• The progress in productivity made possible by agronomic research has until now mostly concerned the most favourable zones, but has little marked difficult areas. Today, this productivity has plateaued in the most intensified regions. It is therefore by intensification in marginal zones that future progress will need to be made. This fundamentally changes the research questions.

• Strengthening agricultural research, knowledge and technology systems for development with the agroecologic sciences will help maintain and increase productivity while lessening environmental impacts and better managing conflicts over resources. The involvement of women is particularly important in this regard.

• Local and traditional knowledge must be combined in an innovative manner with scientific knowledge to overcome current challenges for agriculture and natural resources management.

• Support to small farmers requires the development of public and private partnerships, larger investments in research and extension, and assistance organizing small farmers. Fair conditions to access markets, natural resources, capital and credit, are essential for this support.

• Opening national agricultural markets to international competition can offer economic benefits, but can lead to long term negative effects on poverty alleviation, food security and the environment without basic national institutions and infrastructure being in place.