The Alliance for Agricultural Research and Development for Food Security

The Alliance for Agricultural Research and Development for Food Security is a joint initiative between ACIAR, the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture and the Crawford Fund. Alliance partners co-fund innovative approaches to research-for-development activities and delivery, using the unique and diverse strengths and expertise of the parties, to better promote and achieve food security.

The Alliance recognised the potential for demand-led plant variety design to transform plant breeding for small-scale agriculture and food security. In 2014 it established the project ‘Demand-led plant variety design for emerging markets in Sub-Saharan Africa’, which engages with plant-breeding and university sectors in many countries in southern and eastern Africa.

In 2020–21 the Alliance will co-design a portfolio of new research projects aligned with the vision of all Alliance members. The first project will investigate how farmers’ hubs are being used to deliver solutions and services to farming communities in countries such as Bangladesh and Cambodia. Specifically, the research will focus on the context and role of farmers’ hubs in disseminating information about new products, practices and services to smallholder farmers and the broader farming community. Read more.