Many of the speakers and participants in Science Forum 2009 invoked the spectre of hunger in the context of population growth and climate change. The prognosis is of increasing pressure on scarce agricultural land and water as we try to produce enough food. It is said that we must exert ourselves to the utmost to make farming more productive over its existing surface area, since we cannot afford to expand the available agricultural land. And the need is urgent.

At the same time, the conference included a parallel workshop on the exciting possibilities for moving towards a ‘bio-based economy’, in which agriculture could be used to produce fuels, plastics and other ‘industrial’ products as well as food. The technological prospects are indeed attractive. But, if we need every square metre of land to produce food for hungry people, can we spare any for producing other products?

That question was discussed in the workshop on the bio-based economy. The participants in that workshop made some important observations. For instance, it was pointed out that improving the lives of poor people will require generating more energy as well as producing more food. Other participants reminded us that agriculture has long been used to produce non-food products, such as rubber, and also that growing cash crops of various kinds – including non-food crops – can be a good way for farmers to improve their livelihoods.

Several of the participants in the working group clearly doubted whether the supposed trade-off between food and non-food agriculture was real. Others proposed the pragmatic line that the aim should be to grow ‘multifunctional’ crops that could be used for food, fuel or other purposes at the same time. Nevertheless, at least one voice raised the concern that the spike in food prices during 2008 could certainly be traced to a boom in demand for biofuels. However, another responded that increased agricultural prices should encourage farmers to grow more, thus bringing food prices back down again.

A majority of those taking part in the bio-based economy workshop seemed to be rather relaxed about the supposed competition for land between food, fuel and other non-food crops. But some participants in the plenaries were clearly concerned about the issue. One person wanted to know why society was thinking about biofuels rather than conserving existing energy supplies, thus leaving farms to focus on producing food. (His comment made me wonder why we do not also hear much more about reducing the vast amounts of food that are wasted in industrialized food systems and in wealthy homes, rather than the need to grow more food.)

Clearly, there is an important debate to be had in this arena – with salient points to be made on both sides. Having observed some of the discussions, I am left wondering – How much do we really know about the importance or magnitude of the potential trade-offs between food and non-food crops? Is the perception of competition between them real or imagined? If it is real, can we afford to allow farming land to pass from growing food to producing biofuels? If it is imagined, shouldn’t we abandon the rhetoric of scarce land?

This is my final post from the Science Forum 2009. I would like to thank everyone who has visited this blog and especially those who have contributed their comments. I hope that you have found my messages interesting and useful.

This conference is supposed to be about ‘collaboration’ and ‘partnerships’, but what do those concepts mean? In the discussions so far, ‘partnership’ often seems to be used as little more than a proxy term for something else. It seems to encompass many different kinds of institutional arrangements, including the participation of private companies in agricultural input markets, information-sharing among governments and international organisations, or the collaboration of national and international institutes in multinational research programmes. These are certainly very broad and open-ended interpretations of what ‘partnership’ might mean.

Mostly, the phrase ‘we need partnerships’ seems to be a euphemism for ‘we need your resources’ – including your cash, you know-how and your technologies. This is the contemporary reality for international agricultural research. With the arrival of new philanthropic donors endowed with deep pockets, the proprietary entanglements that impede the free exchange of genes, germplasm and technologies, and the growing capacity of national agricultural research systems in countries like Brazil, India and China, partnerships are a fact of life for the CG system if it is to stay relevant and get things done.

For that reason, the conference theme is well-chosen. But has the conference done justice to that theme, so far? Overwhelmingly, the discussion has focused on technical challenges and technological opportunities. In each parallel workshop, I have heard that the problems are understood and the technologies are either already available or in an advanced stage of development. The call is then for the technologies to be refined and applied.

The focus of Bill Clark’s plenary presentation on the first morning – on institutions, processes and managerial challenges – has largely fallen by the wayside. Why does a conference like this one find it so difficult to get to grips with the kinds of social, economic and programmatic issues that will help to determine whether the next generation of technical interventions will produce the kinds of outcomes we hope to see?

Another issue that has been largely submerged is the acute difficulty entailed in trying to choose between alternative technical pathways, taking into account the awkward trade-offs that must be involved. If agriculture is to be multifunctional – that is, to produce biofuels, bioplastics and other non-food products alongside more food – then competition over the use of scarce resources will very likely intensify even further.

Almost every speaker has acknowledged the growing pressure on scarce land and water if we are to feed a growing human population. But the conference also includes a parallel workshop that is addressing the potential to move to a diversified, ‘bio-based’ economy. Is the answer simply to grow multifunctional crops that can be used for food and other purposes simultaneously? Or will the trade-offs not be so easy to resolve?

Sarah Park (CSIRO, Australia) made a great presentation in one of the parallel sessions this morning in which she pointed out that decisions that are rational according to one index can be sub-optimal according to another measure and therefore maladaptive for sustainability and resilience. For instance, if fertiliser prices are high, it may be economically rational for a farmer to apply less fertiliser and accept a lower yield; her operation remains profitable, but at the macro scale, food availability falls and food security is jeopardised. So, we need to consider not only measures of economic and ecological efficiency but also effectiveness and social equity.

I hope to follow up on those issues later today. For now, a final note: yesterday, I promised to find details of the new funding programme announced by Deborah Delmer. You can read all about the BREAD programme here.

During the second afternoon of the Science Forum, we plunge into a session that ought to have been scheduled on the first morning – a scene-setting plenary that delves into the key themes that are supposed to be framing the conference: forging partnerships and mobilising linkages. It’s great pity that the four useful presentations have come so late in the agenda, particularly since they take place after the parallel workshops are already over.

Nevertheless, the four speakers provide us with useful insights into the institutional and organisational frameworks that will be needed if the CGIAR is to transcend the discredited ‘linear model’ of agricultural research and development. In that framework, scientific innovations were understood to occur in laboratories and on field stations, subsequently being pushed out into farmers’ fields – but the new technologies often failed to make the transition from the lab into practice.

Effective innovation systems are now understood to be more diffuse and open. The speakers provide us with some useful insights into the kinds of organisational changes and new mindsets that will be needed, especially with regard to the power of modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) to enable new kinds of collaborative working, knowledge sharing and innovation.

It proves to be an interesting session, but unfortunately there is hardly any time for questions and discussion from the conference floor – a problem that has plagued this conference throughout. After a short break for tea, we begin the final session of the Forum – a long and gruelling one in which we endure detailed blow-by-blow accounts of the discussions that unfolded in each of the parallel workshops.

What comes out most clearly from the workshop reports is the extent to which all of the working groups have been dominated by technical discussions about agricultural and ecological problems and speculations about potential technological solutions, rather than the linkages and mechanisms that may equip the CGIAR to address those challenges.

The technological possibilities are indeed remarkable and exciting. For instance, as technical capacity increases and the related costs fall dramatically, the genomic secrets of crop plants can be deciphered more quickly and cheaply than ever before. Once uncovered, the information can be exchanged and shared worldwide, instantaneously, through the latest generation of collaborative ICTs and computer software. These technological breakthroughs hold huge potential.

But what will we use this spectacular potential for? The CGIAR needs to make choices about what it will do and how. What should be its targets and strategies? Where should be its vision for the strategic direction in which to go? How will its priorities be set? As the conference ends, I find that I am still looking for signs of the overarching strategy that should guide the future evolution of the CG system. From conversations with other participants, I learn that I am not the only one.

Amid all of the technocratic discussions, the insights of social science – the kinds of insights discussed by Bill Clark yesterday morning or the speakers of the first session this afternoon – have faded into the background. Organisational, managerial and institutional considerations are frequently invoked, but by and large social science seems to be regarded as a minor appendage of science – a vestigial organ rather like the human appendix: everybody agrees that it should be present, but nobody really knows what it is for. And, if it grumbles too much, it can always be cut out - the organism of normal scientific practice will carry on happily without it.

This is surely a disappointing outcome for an event that should be the CGIAR’s flagship, agenda-setting conference. However, the last speaker of the afternoon presents the audience with cause for hope. Mark Holderness, Executive Secretary of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) introduces us to the GCARD process – the steps leading up to the Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development, scheduled to take place in Montpellier, France in March 2010. The conference aims at nothing less than the development of a completely new architecture for international agricultural research, focused squarely on development outcomes.

Holderness does not mince his words: the CGIAR must change; agricultural research must be for development; we must no longer accept the failure of technology transfer and agricultural extension; they must work, and we must make them work. Coming as the final note of the Science Forum 2009, one has the indelible impression that the GCARD 2010 will be a much more significant event for the future of global agriculture and international development.