In response to the refreshed U.S. government’s Global Food Security Strategy (GFSS), released in September 2021, the Feed the Future Interagency Working Group on Research in support of the Global Food Security Act (GFSA), co-led by USAID and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is developing an updated Global Food Security Research Strategy (GFSRS) that lays out key opportunities for using scientific inquiry to achieve priority outcomes. An initial dialogue was begun in October 2021, providing the community with the opportunity to share general observations about the refreshed GFSS. The draft outline below is being shared to provide the research community with a further opportunity for comment as the new strategy takes shape. 

Draft Outline

The Context

• State of global extreme poverty, hunger and malnutrition; including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate crisis on global food security.
• GFSS impact metrics: 20% reduction in poverty and child stunting.
• GFSS priorities with opportunities for research: climate change, diet quality and affordability, and equity and inclusion.
• GFSA statutory mandate for role of research that takes into account other relevant federal research investments, strategies and extension.
• Why research?
  • Critical role of research in sustaining and improving the productivity, profitability and resilience of agriculture and food systems.
    • Unique advantages of agricultural economic growth in reducing extreme poverty.
    • Exceptional dependence of agricultural productivity growth on research-derived innovations.
    • Updated information on relationship between extreme poverty reduction and child stunting decreases.
  • Essential role of science in meeting the challenge of climate change in agriculture and food systems.
    • Adaptation and potential for mitigation through research-based, climate-smart solutions that also increase incomes and reduce extreme poverty.
    • Exceptional rate of return on agricultural research for development investments,
• Institutional strength and diversity of U.S. agriculture and food systems.
  • Exceptional capacity of U.S. institutions to support country partners in generating solutions.
    • Federal, state and private sectors; relevance of land grant model; mutual benefits for food-insecure developing countries as well as potentially strengthening U.S. agriculture and food systems.
    • U.S. leadership through collaborative research partnerships that strengthen our relationships through shared advances in science, generation of science-based solutions and an increase in the ability of countries to make informed decisions on the utility and role of new technologies.
    • Strong integration of producers, cooperatives and agribusiness with public and private research that help generate and disseminate innovative solutions.

The Approach

• Convergence research, as defined by the National Science Foundation (NSF), “is a means of solving vexing research problems, in particular, complex problems focusing on societal needs. It entails integrating knowledge, methods and expertise from different disciplines and forming novel frameworks to catalyze scientific discovery and innovation.” For example, the complex mix of challenges faced by smallholder producers and the need to achieve multiple objectives in biophysical (e.g., increased productivity and reduced risk, decreased environmental impact), socioeconomic (e.g., increased incomes among the poor, greater gender equality and equity) and behavioral science (e.g., management practices, One Health approach) domains, often requires multi- and transdisciplinary approaches to identify compelling innovations and strategies that minimize trade offs and leverage synergies across farm (crops, livestock, fish), market and food systems. This is especially true in diversified farming systems involving crop, livestock and horticultural enterprises. Convergence research also requires a greater understanding of the behavior and preferences of different genders, youth producers and other actors, by which more effective theories of change can be developed.
  • Novel partnerships across science disciplines.
  • Taking into account research funded by multiple U.S. government agencies.
  • Linking research and development (R&D) partners along impact pathways.
  • Enhanced engagement of national and local research partners.
• Prioritizing investment in climate-smart agricultural innovation: 
  • Conceptually similar to “convergence research,” prioritizing climate-smart agricultural innovation enables the innovation pipeline to produce solutions that simultaneously address the challenges of global food insecurity and the climate crisis.
  • Ambitious investment in climate-smart agriculture and food systems innovation will help create a surge of solutions, enabling the world to meet nutritional needs, increase agricultural productivity, improve livelihoods, conserve nature and biodiversity, build resilience to climate change, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sequester carbon.
• Considerations for and approaches to research:
  • Biophysical sciences:
    • Glean more information, more rapidly, from costly experimental data. 
    • Better codevelop, target and validate innovations, with women and other groups who have been marginalized from the benefits of research innovations in the past, to achieve wider positive impact on a range of objectives.
    • Improved ex ante assessments of impacts from research investments.
    • Anticipate potential trade offs and synergies that may obstruct or incentivize, respectively, adoption in challenging environments.
  • Socioeconomic and behavioral sciences:
    • Understanding drivers of household and broader decision-making. 
    • Facilitating development of common agendas.
    • Leverage coinvestment aligned with national/regional strategies and partnerships.
    • Resilient, integrated production and market systems, local to global.
    • Systems identified based on socioeconomic and biophysical parameters (numbers of extreme poor; prevalence of chronic malnutrition, especially as evidenced by child stunting and micronutrient deficiency; potential for agriculture-based solutions).
    • Diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, with a focus on tailoring our work to engage and address the needs of low-income smallholders and their communities where deep poverty and child stunting are concentrated.
  • Policy research:
    • Public policy investments — input and output markets, trade, finance, investments.
    • Regulatory frameworks — biotechnology, plant and animal protection, food safety.
    • Better adapt to rapidly changing dynamics (e.g., policies, market forces).
    • Power dynamics and policy to benefit low-income and less influential groups, with their participation in the policy processes.
• Interagency:
  • Beyond GFSA-authorized research to engage and build on other relevant, federally funded research (e.g., NSF, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), NASA, etc.).
  • Increased scope for synergy related to global challenges in climate, One Health, reducing/reversing extensification of agriculture into fragile, carbon- and biodiversity-rich environments, role of strengthened and expanded access to markets and trade.
  • Advance broader research gains with mutual benefits to GFSA research and the interagency. Broader research gains could include aligning data collection/reporting/methods, strengthening partnerships for sharing samples and expanding collections, targeting geographical areas to prevent/address a hazard, promoting U.S. research values and building public trust in science, connecting with U.S. government experts for scientific input into USAID-led engagement in global fora and committees.
• Key partners:
  • U.S. universities, especially through the Feed the Future Innovation Labs.
  • U.S. private business and nonprofit sectors.
  • International agricultural research centers (e.g., CGIAR).
  • All engaged/partnered with national research and extension organizations in focus countries, including those in government, universities, civil society and private sectors.

Research Themes

• Genetic improvement of crops and livestock.
  • Scope:
    • Climate resilience.
    • Increased efficiency of inputs.
    • Pest and disease resistance, and improved surveillance methods.
    • Increased yield, quality and nutrition content.
  • Rapidly advancing scientific opportunities that can be applied to generating solutions in the near-to-medium term.
    • Genomics and engineering technologies that enable high throughput phenotyping.
    • Improved computation that enables data-driven decision-making in breeding.
    • Creation of new alleles and pathways via gene editing and synthetic biology.
• Sustainable and efficient methods for climate-smart agriculture.
  • Pest and disease management; vaccines.
  • One Health (zoonoses, etc.).
  • Digital tools integration for enhanced decision support.
  • Integrated systems assessment and modeling across productivity, profitability, environment, gender, equity, inclusion and nutrition.
  • Innovative approaches to soil and water management (e.g., soil health).
  • Links between diverse smallholder producers and markets/market actors.
• Nutrition and food systems:
  • Safe, affordable, nutritious food all year.
  • Reduction of food loss and waste — integrating differential impacts in low-income, food-insecure countries.
  • Food system value addition/processing opportunities linked to poverty reduction. 
  • Policies targeting nutrition outcomes.
• Strengthened and expanded access to markets and trade.
  • Role of increased market participation and greater movement, availability and affordability of agricultural inputs, goods, services and safe, nutritious foods.
  • Improved market efficiency and intra- and interregional trade to meet food demand. 

Enhancing Impacts from Research Investment

• Prioritization:
  • Research investment allocation decisions should be informed by (1) the likelihood of advancing practices, policies, knowledge or technologies; (2) the value to society, especially the poor and the marginalized, of the outputs generated from successful research; (3) the likely uptake and utilization of the research product; and (4) the existence of a unique and compelling need for the U.S. government to fund the research.
• Engagement with beneficiaries, research and scaling partners and host country governments.
  • Promotion of locally and regionally led development and local capacity development.
• Scaling and adoption of innovations.
  • Inclusive, demand-led product development that consults with and seeks to benefit women, youth and other low-income potential adopters.

Call-Out Boxes on Special Topics

• Core principles: openness, transparency, honesty, equity, fair competition, objectivity and democratic values.
• Diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility:
  • Address equity and inclusion in partner staffing, in partnerships, in whom we serve and in listening to local voices.
  • Assessment of diversity staffing using tools, such as the Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI), among our partners and local institutions will be undertaken to address support needed for increasing diversity in the workplaces we support.
  • Engage new partners and a more diverse partner base, both in the United States and partner countries.
  • Engage and consult with a wide array of stakeholders, including women, men, youth and locally marginalized groups, as we undertake research and develop innovations with them and for their needs.
• Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM for Climate):
  • Address climate change by uniting participants to significantly increase investment in, or support for, climate-smart innovation and R&D in the global agriculture sector over the next five years (2021-2025).
  • Support frameworks and structures to enable technical discussions and the promotion of expertise, knowledge and priorities across international and national levels of innovation to amplify the impact of participants’ investments.
• Agricultural research capacity development:
  • Stable and sustained local investment in agricultural R&D is critical for agricultural development, job creation and poverty reduction, but there is underinvestment in agricultural R&D in many Feed the Future countries. 
  • Opportunities to increase investments and strengthen local research systems, including a more diverse cadre of scientists, including women and people from groups who are not well represented based on country context, potentially linking with private sector sources, USAID missions and other bilateral and multilateral investments.
  • Research infrastructure — including laboratory space and equipment, and resources for research trials.
  • Role of public-private partnerships in research capacity building (e.g., laboratory networks).
  • Human capital, as large numbers of agricultural researchers approach retirement. Opportunities to invest in developing the skills and competence of local scientists and organizations, including through local M.Sc. and Ph.D. training and mentorship programs, particularly for women and underrepresented groups.
  • Enhanced opportunities and strategies for linking research actors to other innovation system stakeholders (e.g., business, extension and policymakers through innovation platforms and brokers) to support more effective commercialization and scaling.
  • Role of regional and subregional bodies, networks and mechanisms structured around shared agro-ecological conditions in neighboring countries to optimize scarce R&D resources.

Share your feedback via email to [email protected], with the subject line “GFSRS Outline Feedback.” The deadline for feedback is February 11.