The Borlaug Blog

Dr. Zach Stewart

Growing up on a farm in Southwest Iowa, I had already fallen in love with agriculture, but had no understanding of agriculture’s importance to the world, global stability and peace and the livelihood of the poor. Like many young students heading to college, I wanted to study a “cutting-edge” science that would contribute to some of our world’s most pressing challenges; I had no idea I would find this career path in agriculture. Dr. Borlaug’s vision to establish the Global Youth Institute alongside the World Food Prize has led thousands of students to devote careers engaged in agriculture and our global food system, including my own career. Only after completing a Borlaug-Ruan International Internship at the International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Mbita Point, Kenya did I understand the immense role agriculture has in our global society and the academically rigorous sciences and multidisciplinary aspects involved in improving our global food system. This same engagement and investment in African youth is urgently needed to achieve sustainable intensification in Africa.

Agriculture is at the center of the livelihoods of the poorest one billion and is often the sole provider of nourishment and income for these households. As such, improving outcomes of these farming systems is often the cornerstone of international development efforts. Sustainable intensification (SI) is an emerging approach to more sustainably and equitably improve outcomes of smallholder farming systems. SI focuses on increasing food productivity from existing farmland while minimizing pressure on the environment and ensuring that the increase in food productivity maximizes outcomes to smallholder farmers across economic, human condition (e.g. labor/drudgery, nutrition and health outcomes) and social (e.g. gender equitable outcomes) domains. There is no one scientific innovation or technology capable of sustainably intensifying farming systems across all unique agro-ecologies and societies. Rather, a set of multidisciplinary SI principles and knowledge must be adapted and bi-directionally shared along the knowledge transfer value-chain (KTVC). The successful scaling and adoption of SI technologies to achieve an “Evergreen Revolution” (M.S. Swaminathan) or a “Doubly Green Revolution” (Gordon Conway) in Africa heavily depends on the capacity of Africa’s KTVC.

Africa’s global development community knows many of the pressing challenges facing our global food system and has developed numerous proven innovations and technologies capable of overcoming these challenges. Yet we have struggled to scale these proven technologies and increase their adoption by smallholder farmers. As Dr. Borlaug would say, “take it to the farmer.” The only way to “take it to the farmer” and achieve the scaling and adoption of these proven SI technologies is through capacity building along the entire African KTVC. This capacity building of the KTVC must not only focus on the training of African PhD and MSc students but also include the training of African BSc students, extension workers, agricultural business owners and end-users (i.e. smallholder farmers). The successful transfer of these multi-disciplinary SI concepts requires the capacity building of African youth along the entire KTVC, spanning various disciplines, who understand the unique social and agro-ecological conditions of the end-users and can build long-term relationships and trust with the communities where innovation transfer is occurring. This is not a one-off transfer of information but rather is achieved through continuous engagement and support that both provides knowledge to the end-user and learns what the trade-offs and barriers of adoption are for a given technology so those issues can be addressed. Only then can SI innovations be scaled and adopted to impact our global food system.

Seventy percent of Africa’s population is youth (i.e. under 30). These African youth represent the potential future KTVC and will serve as a tremendous catalyst for the scaling and adoption of SI across Africa. Dr. Borlaug had the vision to engage and inspire US youth to devote careers to improving agriculture, our global food system and global food security, and now is the time to engage and inspire African youth to devote careers to improving African agriculture, food systems and food security. These African youth understand the needs of their communities, their unique farming systems and how to adapt SI principles and knowledge to fit these systems. They represent the KTVC from the scientist adapting the SI principles to fit a given agroecology, to the extension worker, agricultural business owner and smallholder farmer bi-directionally transferring SI knowledge along the entire value chain. Without the engagement of Africa’s youth, proven SI principles and knowledge cannot be scaled and adopted.

Just as Dr. Borlaug created the Youth Institute that invested in me, showed me the immense value agriculture has to the world and inspired me through the connection to the World Food Prize ceremony and Laureates, there is now the same urgent need for investment in and inspiration of Africa’s youth. Essential to this call is the engagement and investment in youth from various backgrounds and with particular prioritization of investing in and engagement of young women. Women provide an average of 40 percent of the agricultural labor hours in Africa and as such, will play a critical role in the agricultural KTVC. SI principles are multi-disciplinary and will require the development of youth pursuing careers in agronomy, genetics, chemistry, physics, social science, economics, health sciences, environmental science etc. All need the lens and understanding of agriculture’s central role in the development of our global communities. These students will make up the KTVC across the entire agricultural landscape from the farmer-practitioner, the agricultural advisor and extensionist to the scientist and politician. Only when we fill the capacity of Africa’s agricultural KTVC can we then scale proven SI technologies and achieve SI in Africa.