Partnerships – a primary theme and prevailing topic of discussion during the second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development – were touted as essential elements to link research to development outcomes. Not business-as-usual development outcomes: GCARD2 attendees recognized that in the face of this century’s human and environmental challenges, a paradigm shift in the approach to development is needed. Not only must the world’s rural landscapes produce food and fiber, but they must also conserve biodiversity, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, produce energy, and support economic development and resilient rural livelihoods. Partnerships that support whole landscape approaches link science to development initiatives that can achieve all these goals.
Meanwhile Foresight was another of the conference themes, and can guide a path from the current scope of agricultural research to one emphasizing the whole landscapes approach. But how to make this a reality on the ground is another question. The breakout session “Landscape Partnerships – Linking Research and Action on Agriculture, Land, Water, and Forests” facilitated by the Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Initiative, sought to answer this question. A key point of departure for the session was that stronger and more strategic international partnerships will be essential to advance landscape science that supports effective action on the ground.
Hundreds of integrated landscape management initiatives have been documented, as well as many networks to support landscape action. Yet in most cases, the synergies that could be achieved with a landscape focus are lost due to fragmentation of different sectoral agencies, diverse communities of researchers, and private businesses. Meanwhile, integrated landscape research efforts are only weakly linked to the multi-stakeholder groups seeking to manage their landscapes for the full range of needed products and ecosystem services, and thus are neither contributing adequately to their efforts, nor strongly demand-driven. Participants during the Partnership session also highlighted the challenge of the frequent mismatch between administrative decision making bodies and the spatial extent of landscapes.
At the session, speakers of different international (CGIAR Research Programs, ICARDA, CTA, and CABI) and national organizations shared their views on the potentials of landscape partnership with around 50 conference participants. Notable was the presentation by Ivo Mello (Brazilian Farmers Federation of No-Till Associations) who gave an overview of the on-ground work they are already involved in, increasing food production with improved soil carbon sequestration and reduced eutrophication. His work reminds us that only through strong linkages between researchers, program managers and farmers and other land users can we hope to implement best practices in integrated landscape management.
The need for partnerships between the research community and multi-stakeholder groups on the ground was highlighted by other speakers throughout GCARD2 as well. The landscape approach was generally acknowledged as the best framework for identifying all relevant stakeholder groups, working together to envision possible desirable outcomes, and planning activities and projects that deliver those outcomes. World Bank Vice-President of Sustainable Development and chair of the CGIAR Fund Council Rachel Kyte said as much in her closing remarks, when she stated that “CGIAR will continue to move away from commodity-based research, toward a landscape approach.”
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