INNOVATION

Trade Innovation Climate Change Nutrition

Innovation in food systems is needed to provide healthy diets for a growing global population while reducing the impact these systems have on the climate and natural environment. The LAC program participates in global initiatives focused on developing and adopting innovations in the agrifood sector to transform food systems for people and the planet. As a critical supplier of food and ecosystem services to the world, LAC must play a leading role in this process.

New crop breeds for better nutrition

Biofortification is one of the many important innovation solutions to fight micronutrient deficiency or “hidden hunger”. IFPRI’s HarvestPlus program uses traditional crop breeding to develop micronutrient-enriched, climate-smart crops. Crops are bred to provide essential iron, zinc, and vitamin A to rural households improving their nutritional status, health, and livelihoods. In Latin America, HarvestPlus has released micronutrient enriched varieties in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Peru; with crops including iron beans, vitamin A sweet potato, zinc maize, and zin wheat. HarvestPlus engages public, private, and NGO partners worldwide to sustainably scale biofortification, enabling environments for biofortification (policies, programs, regulations, standards) and facilitating the delivery of biofortified crops.

Building an enabling environment to foster change 

Our approach is to develop an enabling environment of policies and institutions that catalyze innovation. This includes identifying opportunities to invest in research and development, informing the creation of incentive structures to encourage the adoption of new technologies and practices, and providing guidance for reducing policy, regulatory, and institutional hurtles to change among other activities.

Brief: Achieving sustainable agricultural practices: From incentives to adoption and outcomes

Journal Article: Scoping Review on Incentives for Adoption of Sustainable Agricultural Practices and their Outcomes

Informe: Promover prácticas agrícolas sostenibles: De los incentivos a la adopción y los resultados

Report: Repurposing agricultural policies and support: Options to transform agriculture and food systems to better serve the health of people, economies, and the planet

Avanzar2030

Avanzar2030 is an evidenced-based process to identify promising innovations in agrifood systems and estimate the cost of implementing such innovations with the aim of adapting to climate change, providing food during emergencies and for a growing population, generating decent employment opportunities, reducing poverty, producing more with fewer resources, increasing food safety, improving diets and food security, and managing an expanding technological revolution. More about this process and its potential impacts can be found on the program page.