Overview
This project aimed to create and collate the knowledge base, and a core team of local partners, as a basis from which to undertake ‘foresight for food’ exercises in the EGP to facilitate sustainable intensification of agriculture in the region.
Food systems in EGP face major challenges from high and rising population pressure on land, high burden of poverty and malnutrition, increasing urbanization, stagnating farm incomes, and the rising disparity between farm and non-farm incomes and increased uncertainty due to climate change. At the same time, rapid economic growth and technological progress are transforming the South Asian economy, generating new opportunities for agriculture to become a more specialized and remunerative and less drudgery enterprise for smallholder women and men farmers and agricultural labourers.
Whether leveraging the opportunities offered by rapid economic transformation or addressing the new challenges created by it, both require a systems-oriented approach to research, policy-making and implementation to reshape food systems. A reasonable understanding of the food system, its different components, and the way they relate to each other is essential to develop a system-oriented approach.
The overall purpose of this project was to lay down the groundwork for an open, scientifically informed and participatory foresight for food exercise in the EGP region, led by regional scientists and other stakeholders including policy-makers, the private sector and farmers.
This project is part of the DFAT/ACIAR-funded Sustainable Development Investment Portfolio (SDIP) program.
