Program overview

1. Global Research Program:
Enabling SystemsTransformation
Dr.Victor Afari-sefa
Research Program Director
12 January 20

2. Research Clusters
GRP – Enabling Systems Transformation
1.Markets,
Institutions, and
Policies
1.Technology
adoption and
impact analysis
1.Nutrition,
Dietary behaviour,
and smart food
1.Gender and
Youth
Agri-Business
Innovation
Platform
1.Knowledge and
capacity
development

3. Key Highlights
 Aims at enabling farm and food systems transformations by improving policies and facilitating
innovations, markets, and capacity development by leveraging on the 2 other GRPs
 Entry point for most new R&D initiatives (e.g., regenerative agriculture): strategic foresight & ex-ante
analysis of investments; exit point for measuring outcomes/impacts
 Branded “smart food” fully embedded within the “Nutrition, Dietary Behaviour and Smart Food” cluster
and aims to generate evidence to support healthy diets, generating evidence and mainstreaming millets
and pulses into food systems
 Generating evidence on behavioral, markets, institutional and policy interventions for building
nutrition-sensitive and resilient value chains in drylands
 Scaling climate-smart agriculture and nutrition-sensitive value chains
 Entrepreneurship development, business incubation, and capacity development across value chains and
programs
 Conducting M&E and impact assessment on ICRISAT technologies and interventions
 Open access data repositories, portals, and dashboards to generate research evidence for policies and
informed decisions making

4. Market, Institutions and Policies
 Estimating yield potential and its drivers
 Example: chickpea in Ethiopia
 Investment planning to minimize climate risk in agricultural
production
 Impact pathways for micro-nutrient-sensitive value chains
 Scenario analysis for designing resilient and profitable
farming systems
 Assess payments for environmental services, including the
carbon sequestration potential
 Extensive household/value chain survey implemented in
dryland regions, including Senegal and five regions in Mali

5. Technology Adoption and Impact Assessment
 A large-scale randomized control trial (RCT) study on the diffusion
of machine harvest-able chickpeas and its implications on the labor
market
 Low uptake of machine harvesters due to lodging and grain
loss but a high willingness to pay for the technology
 DNA fingerprinting studies for more accurate adoption tracing and
ex-post IA
 Trait prioritization and market studies for demand-driven breeding
pipelines and technology development (sorghum and groundnut in
Tanzania)
 High preference and willingness to pay for drought-tolerant, high-
yielding, and grain market-preferred varieties
 Heterogeneous preferences (consumption vs. market-oriented)

6. Nutrition, Dietary Behavior & Smart Food
• Projects aimed at strengthening local food systems by linking “Agriculture-Nutrition-Entrepreneurship”
to achieve healthy, diverse, and affordable diets and sustainably produced foods
• Undertake studies to understand drivers of consumer choices and Strengthen local value addition &
food safety infrastructure
• Design evidence-based interventions to create a “demand pull” for dryland crops (Smart Food initiative of
ICRISAT)
• Promote Smart Food Platform through a branding campaign and licensing strategy with Start-
ups/SMEs/Corporates.
• Explore collaborative projects to develop and validate innovative food formulations with focus on “Gut
microbiome modulating” nutri-dense food formulations using “Smart Food”* for:
• Improving nutritional status, dietary diversity and addressing malnutrition among children, adolescent
girls, and women through various nutritional intervention programs in vulnerable local communities
(rural & tribal)
• Addressing lifestyle diseases
*“Smart Food” is food that fulfills the criteria of being “good for you”, “good for the planet” and “good for the farmer”

7. Agribusiness and Innovation Platform
Improving farm-based livelihood and strengthening value-chain
Capacity building & skill development programs for farmers
Implementing collectivization and value-addition business models
Improving nutrition in the drylands
Supporting start-ups to develop tech-enabled agribusiness solutions
Co-business incubation models for India and Africa
Promoting entrepreneurship in the drylands
Enhancing start-up and SME competitiveness through IPRs
Undertaking research in IP to strengthen innovation ecosystem
Supporting innovators and technology commercialization
Developing healthy & nutritious millet-based food products
Addressing malnutrition through community-led processing facilities

8. Farmer inclusive value chain development

9. Gender and Social Inclusion Integration into
ICRISAT Programs
Programs Gender integration focus
Accelerated
Crop
Improvement
End-user profiling, traits discovery, and breeding
• Gender dynamics in seed systems: strengthen the contribution and role of women and youth
• Leverage opportunities for business development in seed systems
• Linking participatory and ender user-informed plant breeding to the seed supply system
Resilient Farm
& Food Systems
End user technology testing and on-farm adoption
• Youth and women technology usage in advisory service for rural transformation
• Climate change and gendered vulnerability- local knowledge for Climate-Gender Smart Adaptation
• Inclusive participation and capacity of ALL actors in post-farm production
Enabling
Systems
Transformation
Gender-informed agri-food systems outcomes
• Changing agri-food systems: Thinking beyond the plot level to leverage economic opportunities for women
and youth
• Organize and develop local processing units of high vitamin A, Fe, and Zn products to increase demand pull
• Strengthen the development of local policy to reinforce value chains and market linkages
• Gender-targeted interventions through the three-Dimensional Model of Women’s Empowerment
Key research questions:
o What models work best for gainful and impactful engagement of youth and women in all agri-food systems value chains?
o Which value chains offer the potential for improving household incomes, nutrition, economic growth, and social inclusion, and
which should investment be targeting?

10. Dryland Academy: Six verticals – Integrated and transformative
Accelerator
Learning
programs
Short courses/
trainings/ field visits
•Immersive; annually
scheduled events;
customised demand
driven programs
Learning
systems for
scholars and
students
•Post graduate
students, interns,
Visiting Scientists
etc.
Online and
certification
courses
•Certification courses
•iLEARN
•MOOCs
•Linkages with
Universities
Resource
centre for
Knowledge and
Capacity
Development
• MEL, Evaluation
protocols, policy
resources,
mmethodology guides,
Ethical issues in
research, etc.
Knowledge
hubs at the
Institutional
level
• Modules for new
joiners
• Build capacity of
ICRISAT scientists
• Links to databases,
advisories, digital tools
– VDSA/DLD; iSAT etc.
Building Social
Capital -
Connecting
People/Institutions
• Dedicated space for
Dryland Ambassadors,
champions,
philanthropies, High
Net worth Individuals,
etc.
Respective Clusters
and Programs
HR-LSU; Research
Programs
Clusters and Programs
Digital Ag. team
KCD, EST & RFFS,
ICRISAT-HR
ICRISAT-HR
DMAS, Comms
Task force
members
Gender Equality and Social Inclusion principles

11. Partners/Collaborators/Funders

12. Thank YOU

13. ICRISAT started collating meso level database (country,
state and district level) since 1980’s
covering 7 states initially, later expanded to 10 states
in 1990’s
District level database for India’s Agriculture sector and food systems
20 States from 1966-2018
20 States and 571 districts
Data search, download and compare
Data visualization
District snapshots
Spatial maps and visualization
API links
Features of the DLD web portal
http://data.icrisat.org/dld/index.html