This document summarizes David Bergvinson's presentation on demand-driven innovation in agriculture. It discusses how demand-driven innovation integrates farmer needs into product development. It highlights challenges like climate change and changing demographics that threaten food security. It provides examples of projects in India that achieved adoption at scale through participatory approaches and partnerships. The presentation argues that public-private-producer partnerships, mobile technologies, and open data can help accelerate demand-driven innovation to meet future global food demand in a sustainable way.

1. David Bergvinson
Presented at NAAS 2015
Silver Jubilee Lecture
3 June 2015
Demand-Driven Innovation in Agriculture:
Creating Economic Opportunity for
Smallholder Farmers and Nutritional
Security for Consumers
ICRISAT is a
member of the
CGIAR Consortium

2. ICRISAT | 2
What Is and What Drives Demand-Driven
Innovation In Agriculture?
Innovation
Climate
Change
Consumer
Awareness
Sustainable
Intensification
Humanitarian
Goals
Demand-driven
innovation (DDI)
integrates information,
priorities and needs of
farmers in the design,
development and
delivery of farmer- and
consumer-preferred
products, knowledge and
services

3. ICRISAT | 3
Climate change, resource scarcity and changing
demographics threaten food & nutritional security
Climate Change
Diseases
Climate
change
BreedingAgronomy
Projected
demand by
2050 (FAO)
World-wideaverageyield
(tonsha-1)
Linear
extrapolations
of current
trends
Water, nutrient &
energy scarcity
Potential effect
of climate-
change-induced
heat stress on
today’s cultivars
(intermediate
CO2 emission
scenario)
Year
Marianne Banziger, CIMMYT, 2012

4. ICRISAT | 4
Current realities in developing countries. . .
Agronomic Dynamics
Smallholder farmers in South Asia are
facing higher input costs and lower
market value for produce and facing
increased climate and market
variability – this is even more
challenging for woman farmers
• For nutritional security to be
realized:
• Increase rate of genetic gain in
staple crops by 50%
• Ecological intensification
• Diet diversity increased while
increasing nutrition-per-drop
• Manage risk and economic
opportunity
• We need to realize gains with same
land, less water, nutrients, fossil
fuel and labor
• All of this needs to get done
against the backdrop of climate
change

5. Biodiversity loss, Nitrogen
cycle and climate change are
various parameters has
reached beyond its
permissible threshold at
planetary scale
Living within the ecological limits of the plant. . .
Agronomic Dynamics
ICRISAT | 5
Foley et al, Nature, 2009

6. ICRISAT | 6
Narrowing diversity of our food system is having an impact
on nutrition and health
Consumer Awareness
For nutritional security to be realized:
• Diet diversity to be increased
• Manage risk and economic
opportunity
• Realize gains with same land,
less water, nutrients, fossil fuel
and labor – Smart Foods – e.g.
Nutri-cereals
• Empowering women and girls –
e.g. First 1000 days campaign
Khoury et al. (2014) PNAS 111:4001-4006

7. ICRISAT | 7
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will be replacing
the MDGs in 2016
• Goal 1 – End poverty in all its forms everywhere
• Goal 2 – End hunger, achieve food security and improved
nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
Humanitarian Goals

8. ICRISAT | 8
Public-Private-Producer Partnerships (PPPPs) are key in
supporting demand-driven innovation in Agriculture
• Engaging farmers early and often in the design, development
and delivery of scientific outputs will result in higher rates of
adoption of farmer- and consumer-preferred technologies
• Participatory approaches to research can compress product
development cycles and create awareness and demand
• PPPPs will play a critical role in feeding 9.6 billion people by
2050 in a sustainable manner – financially, socially,
environmentally
• Key challenges: aligned goals, triple wins, trust, enabling
environment, governance (including ‘big data’), agency to
women and making agriculture a viable business for youth
PPPPs – The missing link ?

9. PPPPs – An engine to Innovate
• Designing global programs
that are locally relevant
and socially equitable
• PPPP for scaling / feedback
for demand-driven
innovation
• Agile science and policy
support to respond to rapid
changes in climate, markets
and societal needs while
living within the ecological
boundaries of the planet
Monitoring, Learning,
Evaluation
NAAS
Network

10. Cross-cutting issues
Mainstreaming nutrition
Empowering women – women are
consulted, involved and supported to lead
Attracting youth to agriculture
Approach for Adoption
Participatory approach and partnering – working side by side
Building capacity – at a national and local level
Integrating communications - to build awareness and share knowledge
Monitoring and evaluation – for feedback and adjustment
Policy support – work closely with government to encourage the needed policies
A holistic approach
to demand-driven
innovation
Analyzing
key problems
and
opportunities
Managing
soil and water
Crop
Improvement
& seed
access
Driving
market
development
Facilitating
market
access
Introducing
processing
Developing
on-farm
practices and
technologies
Diversifying
farms

11. STRASA
Boundary
partners
Lead
farmers
Broader
community
STRASA built a large network of delivery partners
capable of identifying and equipping lead farmers …
… who rapidly mobilized others in their community to
adopt new varieties, thereby motivating seed companies
to produce, promote and distribute improved varieties
DDI Example 1 – Stress tolerant rice
Lead farmers have interest
and capacity to assist
others in community, are
influential and trusted,
and can take risk with
testing new technologies
Boundary partners are
community based NGOs
& government extension
system with aligned
goals
SOURCE: PO interviews
Participatory Variety Selection – asking the farm
family what they want in a new rice variety
Swarna Swarna-sub1
1
1
Crop
Improvement
& seed
access

12. … and created feedback loops that both facilitate rapid
scale up and enhance ongoing R&D and delivery efforts
“Participatory
variety
selection”
“Dissemination”
▪ Improve product development
by listening to farmers
▪ Accelerate adoption at launch
by visualizing demand early at
community level
▪ Stimulate informal supply
networks by incentivizing
farmers to produce seed and
help match supply and demand
▪ Catalyze early policy change by
using strong farmer demand to
put pressure on government to
create enabling environment
▪ Accelerate scale up by
leveraging nodes of influence
to deliver information and
products to large numbers of
farmers
▪ Reduce reliance on public
extension system for broad and
rapid delivery; can bring
extension on board for scale up
▪ Improve future R&D by
gathering market intelligence
based on feedback from
farmers (e.g., detailed farmer
segmentation and targeting)
Researchers Lead farmers
Broader
community
Technology
Feedback
Knowledge &
Products
Feedback
Impact
▪ Shorter product
development cycles
generating superior
technologies (~3x
faster timeline from
R&D to on farm
adoption)
▪ Faster adoption and
scale up by farmers
▪ Faster diffusion
across state
governments
▪ Accelerated
progress on
complementary
public sector efforts
(e.g., National Food
Security Mission)
Benefits
SOURCE: PO interviews 12

13. Lessons learned from projects that achieved delivery at scale
Accelerate trait introgression into
farmer-preferred varieties
Move a highly desirable trait (e.g., submergence
tolerance) into a widely accepted variety to
accelerate product delivery
Variety targeting
Leverage digital technology (e.g., geo-spatial
mapping tools) to improve targeting and to prioritize
trait development
Seed Roadmaps
Develop tools to systematically define market
opportunities, product profiles and volumes needed to
achieve target adoption; identify strategic partners for
production; lay out timelines for delivery
Participatory Variety Selection
Grow limited but diverse set of improved varieties
under local conditions and let farmers select what
variety is most appropriate
Strategic and valued partnerships in the
public, private and civil society sectors
Identify partners along the product development and
delivery value chain and engage them early
Nodes of knowledge
Identify and empower local leaders within the farm
community to demonstrate, provide feedback and
deliver appropriate technologies
Building a movement through the media
and farmer testimonials
Stories told from the perspective of farmers tend to
be the most effective in building support and
awareness at all levels – especially the government
Aligning with government initiatives
National, state and local governments supporting
farmers through various programs can help scale up
new technologies – pride of local ownership is
important
Real-time MLE
Use digital tools to support real-time tracking of
outcomes to optimize resource allocation, increase
transparency and support rapid cycle research for
development
1
2
3
4
5
7
8
9
10
6
Accelerated varietal release and pre-
release promotion
Coordinated with research institutions and
government for early release. Organized large scale
pre-release seed multiplication and dissemination to
ensure seed availability and fulfilling demand upon
commercial release
1
3

14. DDI Example 2 - Soil Mapping as an
entry point under Bhoochetana
• Stagnant agricultural growth 2001-08 in Karnataka
• 70% agriculture is rainfed
• Vast untapped potential
Managing
soil and water
- Increased crop yield by
2066%
- Covered 3.1 m ha and
benefitted 3.6 m families
- Contributed to rise in
agriculture growth annually
above 5% since 2009
- Benefit cost ratio for the
farmers 3 to 14:1
- Net benefits accrued in 4
years Rs. 1268 Crores

15. ICRISAT | 15
Cloud-based business intelligence tools are now used to
accelerate and integrate farmer preferred technologies
• Mobile Data Collection (MDC)
• On-farm trials
• Market intelligence
• Business Intelligence to support
farm planning and practices
• Seed companies use mobile money
to reduce costs; ensure product
integrity
• Farmers are using mobile money to
pay for seed and fertilizer
Key Enablers : ICT Tools Being Used
Challenges:
• Valuation of farm data
• Literacy and UI to support knowledge
exchange and decisions at farm level
• Personal Identification Information
• Big Data Governance
• Reliable and affordable connectivity
in rural areas
• Lack of high quality GIS data
• Spatial Data Infrastructure is weak
• Capacity building

16. End-user
demand
Value chain assessment framework
Inputs and farmer services
Processing and access to
markets
Research and development
Improved
genetics &
repro-
duction
Animal
genetics
systems
Feed and
Fodder1
Livestock
production
manage-
ment2
Vaccine/
drugs/
diagnostics
development
Discovery
Research
Aggregation,
Storage
Animal
health
systems
Knowledge
exchange
Country-level
valuechain
steps
Crop
improve-
ment
Inputs and farmer services
Post-harvest and access to
markets
Research and development
Agronomic
research
Soil
Health
Farm
manage-
ment
Seed
systems
Know-
ledge ex-
change
Conditioning,
Storage,
Aggregation
Processing/
Value
Addition
Crops
Country-level
valuechain
steps
Multi-value chain national policies
Data, country strategies, business intelligence
Value chain-specific regulations – grades and standards, phyto-sanitary,
Environment
Partnerships and community ownership
Enabling
Environment
Infrastructure, transport/logistics
Finance & insurance
Outcomesfor
sustainable
productivity
and
livelihoods
Nutrition
Livestock
End-user
demand
Processing
Enablers
forchange
Water-
shed
Digital Agriculture
Capacity building
Inclusiveness and gender
Economic returns
Policies
anddata
Discovery
Research

17. ICRISAT | 17
Mobile technology is now used to support the smallholder
farmer knowledge exchange and market integration
• Mobile phones have increased
farmers access to equitable
markets and consumers
• Mobile phones are being used for
traceability to support price
premiums for locally grown food
• Tailored information and videos
offers new opportunities to train
women and youth about
agriculture
Challenges:
• Ag companies want to own the
platform (exclusivity); shared
platform stimulates competition
• Advisory services are popular; timely
access to inputs to follow
recommendations is a challenge
• Info-entrepreneur bias towards
products from sponsoring companies
• End-to-end support is not widely
available as it often involves multiple
actors to converge along the value
chain.
Key Enablers : ICT Tools Being Used

18.  Leveraging Open Data for Ag Development April 30 2013 v2 BOS
Stitching currently disparate data together enables us to offer
integrated solutions: Power of location, time and unique identifiers
Location and time can stitch together
diverse sources of information and
support delivery of farmer-specific
information
Soybean
chickpea
Cattle breeds
Microbiome
Unique identifiers enables mining of
genetic resources and standard trait
ontologies enables collaboration
Data Ecosystem for integrated solutions to increase farm productivity,
market opportunities, reduce risk, improve natural resources and nutrition
Markets
Weather
Soils
Seeds
Financial
services
(not exhaustive)
Nutrition

19. ICRISAT | 19
Technology enablement and partnership with other sectors for
inclusive market-oriented development (IMOD)
Inclusive Value Chains
Early pioneers for
realizing this vision:
Mobile
Money
eContracts
Supply Chain
Mgmt
ICT for
Extension
Processing /
Branding
MOOCs,
Participatory Ed
Demand
Forecasting
Rural youth
Farmer
Urban
ConsumerTechnology Ecosystem
Inputs & Farmer
Services
Research &
Development
Post-harvest

21. David Bergvinson
Director General, ICRISAT
d.bergvinson@cgiar.org
We look forward to your
questions, comments and
partnership towards realizing
global nutritional security
Thank You
ICRISAT is a
member of the
CGIAR Consortium