“2015 feels like the closing chapter in a book that is still unfinished. We have the ability to give it happy ending, but not quite worked out how.” The World Food Program’s Gregory Barrow used this analogy to set the scene for The Economist Events’ Feeding the World Summit held in Amsterdam this week, which Farming First attended as media partner for the fourth consecutive year.

2015 is a pivotal moment for the development community, Barrow highlighted, as four major global events will take place that will define the development agenda for the next one and a half decades.

The thought-provoking debate and discussion that followed among panel sessions, interviews and key notes from respected names in agribusiness, policy, international agencies, science and the NGO community, began to explore and uncover solutions for these four major challenges.

Building Resilience to Disaster

In March, the UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction will be held in Sendai, Japan. The term “resilience” as a concept to cope with and recover from shocks, bouncing back to a stronger place than before, has been explored in detail in recent years as an approach to making farmers and our food supply more robust.

Tools and technologies to help the smallholder farmers that must grow crops in the face of a changing climate, were highlighted by Mark Rosegrant of the International Food Policy Research Institute, who summarised findings from a report released last year that tested the effectiveness of 11 technologies under climate change scenarios. No-till agriculture and nitrogen use efficiency were among the approaches that showed the most promising results, although effectiveness varies greatly from region to region.

Mike Frank of Monsanto also championed scientific solutions to extreme weather events. Water Efficient Maize for Africa, he commented, has now reached 3 million farmers vulnerable to drought, who have seen maize yields rise from 1.8 tonnes to 4.5 tonnes per hectare. Yet several panellists argued that the most important piece of this technology puzzle, is getting the tools into the hands of the farmers and training them on the best ways to use it. 

This was echoed by Ajay Vir Jakhar of the Farmers’ Forum India, who pleaded with donor nations to provide training, not aid. “Capacity building is the most important thing” he commented. “We need to train the trainers”.

Financing Development: Who Foots the Bill?

July 2015 will see the development community congregate in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss how the new Sustainable Development Goals will be financed. The immense challenge that farmers and agricultural SMEs face to access funding was encapsulated at the conference by Josephine Okot, Managing Director of Victoria Seeds, the leading seed company of Uganda. She told how she was turned away by every bank she applied to for a loan. “Commercial banks are not willing to take the risk” she commented. “We need alternative financial products. Debt, debt, debt, is just not good enough”.

The lack of finance for small companies that fall through the gap between microfinance and mainstream banking is a key concern for the development community. Josephine believes that someone else must mitigate the risk the banks take, such as a development bank that guarantees loans. Better access to weather data would also lead to improved insurance schemes that would protect farming entrepreneurs.

Tim Gutteridge, Chief Operating Officer of the Fairtrade Foundation championed the approach of financing smallholder farmers with an upfront payment from the companies buying the end product. He believes the Faitrade model, that connects smallholders with multinational food and beverage companies, is working, and is scalable.

Sustainable Development Goals: From Policy to Practice

A panel session was dedicated to debating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will come into force in September 2015. Marcel Beaukeboom, Head of Food and Nutrition Security at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs was optimistic that the SDGs will do their job. He commented that they will be much more inclusive than their predecessors, the Millennium Development Goals, as they are not written by governments, for governments, but include a much wider group of stakeholders.

Mr. Beaukeboom also highlighted that the Sustainable Development Goals are not independent parts of one package, but rather an interconnected set of challenges that must be tackled in an integrated way.

Goal five, to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, is an example of this interconnected nature of the SDGs, as agriculture can play a big part in the empowerment of women, given that a vast number of women are farmers. Sue Carlson, Leader of the Women’s Committee of the World Farmers Organisation spoke on this topic, stressing that informing women of their rights is crucial for them to achieve equality. “Knowledge is power”, she commented. If women had equal access to tools and resources to men, hunger could be reduced by up to 17 per cent.

Image credit: Farming First.

Coping with Climate Change

The final global event that will distinguish 2015 as an important year for development, is the Climate Change negotiations in Paris in December, when a new climate agreement will be signed. Although agriculture will not formally be part of this agreement, the spotlight on feeding a warming world grows stronger.

Farmers have a responsibility to mitigate the causes of climate change, as well as adapt to them. Prem Warrior of Valagro Group championed the emergence of Big Data and ICT technology that will enable farmers to “customize” the way they carry out their farming practices. With the right data and knowledge available to them, farmers are able to adopt a more precise and efficient approach to applying inputs such as water, seeds and fertilizer, which will not only have economic benefits for the farmer but a positive impact on the environment, protecting natural resources for future generations.

Jimmy Smith of the International Livestock Research Institute highlighted that a great opportunity lies in reducing the “carbon hoofprint” of livestock – as it currently accounts for a vast proportion of gaseous emissions. By breeding more productive animals, we can reduce the number needed by a family for their meat, milk and eggs.

The audience at The Economist’s Feeding the World Summit 2015 can indeed be the joint authors of the ending to this story of development, as Gregory Barrow commented at the beginning of the day. We know the ending we want to see, when the SDGs expire in 2030 - we must work together to realize it.

By Farming First www.farmingfirst.org

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited (EIU) or any other member of The Economist Group. The Economist Group (including the EIU) cannot accept any responsibility or liability for reliance by any person on this article or any of the information, opinions or conclusions set out in the article.