Background Information on the Australian International Food Security Centre

Summary

Despite recent productivity gains, roughly one in seven people in the world suffer chronic hunger. Improving agricultural productivity is an effective way to improve food security and reduce poverty.

Although agricultural research has frequently demonstrated high rates of return, investment has been declining, and this is translating into declining agricultural productivity.

Australia is uniquely placed to help reverse the productivity decline. We share the range of environments found in the developing regions of the world, from arid to temperate to tropical. We are a food exporting country. Our success is built on agricultural research.

Building on Australia’s position as one of the world’s leaders in agricultural research, Minister Rudd has requested the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) establish a new Australian International Food Security Centre to assist developing countries, maximise the benefits and opportunities of agricultural productivity to achieve food and nutritional security.

The Australian Government has committed funding of $36 million over four years for the Centre’s activities. The initiative forms a major component initiatives announced at CHOGM in October 2011.

The Australian International Food Security Centre will have a broad international focus, recognising the significance of food security to developing countries across Africa, Asia and the Pacific. Particular emphasis will be given to Africa, where the highest proportion of the world’s poor are found.

The Centre will:

support smallholder-driven research partnerships to tackle clearly articulated, major food security challenges that require medium to long-term collaborative efforts;
stimulate broader education and training for postgraduate students;
provide a global portal for access to Australian research, technical and policy expertise in areas of national comparative advantage, including tropical, subtropical and temperate agriculture;
be based on principles of cooperative contribution and collaboration, building on existing programs and linking a range of Australian, African and international research and development agencies; and,
facilitate collaboration of businesses and researchers, including private sector organisations, industry associations, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), universities and Australian government research agencies such as the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), national agricultural research systems (NARS) and other end users.

An international conference on African food security will be held in the second quarter of 2012 under the auspices of the Centre, and will be foundational in establishing the partnerships and priorities for the new Centre.

Background

Despite recent gains in agricultural productivity, roughly one in seven people in the world suffer chronic hunger. And the problem will be compounded as the world’s population grows by an additional 2 billion people over the next 40 years.

Food is an unalienable human right - essential for human health, peace and prosperity. It is also a fundamental driver of economic growth. World Bank research indicates agricultural productivity growth is twice as effective in reducing poverty as growth in other sectors of the economy.

As recent events have shown, hungry people can change the face of nations. In North Africa, rising food prices contributed to the Arab spring. In the horn of Africa, hungry people are restive people, who move in search of sustenance.

A productive and sustainable agriculture sector can make a significant financial and social contribution to economic growth developing countries and support progress towards achieving Millennium Development Goals.

Improving agricultural productivity is an effective way to improve food security and reduce poverty. Incongruously, most of the world’s food-insecure are themselves farmers.

Three quarters of the world’s poor and food insecure live in rural areas and rely directly or indirectly on agriculture for livelihoods. Rising productivity for smallholders is an effective strategy in reducing poverty for large numbers of people.

Also, poor people in both rural and urban areas in developing countries spend a far higher proportion of their income on food than more affluent households in developed countries.

Investments in agricultural research give high rates of return. However, agricultural research has been an area of declining investment, both by national governments and development agencies. Declining investment has been followed by declining agricultural productivity.

There is a need to reverse these downward trends in investments in the rural sector in general and research in particular, to enable sustainable productivity increases for smallholders, as an effective pathway out of poverty.

Australia is uniquely placed to help reverse the decline in agricultural productivity. We share the range of environments found in the developing regions of the world, from arid to temperate to tropical.

We are a food exporting country. Our success is built on agricultural research.

Building on Australia’s position as one of the world’s leaders in agricultural research, Minister Rudd has requested the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) establish a new Australian International Food Security Centre to assist developing countries, particularly but not exclusively in Africa, to maximise the benefits and opportunities of agricultural productivity to achieve food and nutritional security.

The initiative forms a major component of initiatives announced at CHOGM in late October 2011.

Australian International Food Security Centre

The Australian International Food Security Centre will have a broad international focus, recognising the significance of food security to developing countries across Africa, Asia and the Pacific.

In the first instance, however, particular emphasis will be given to Africa, where the highest proportion of the world’s poor are found.

The Centre would provide a global portal for access to Australian research, technical and policy expertise in areas of national comparative advantage, including tropical, subtropical and temperate agriculture.

The initiative would expand the work of ACIAR, particularly and initially in African countries, but with scope to broaden its geographic reach. It will also enhance Australia’s existing $100 million African Food Security Initiative (AFSI).

The proposed Centre would be based on principles of cooperative contribution and collaboration, linking a range of Australian, African and international research and development agencies.

The Centre will play an important role in bridging the gap between discovery research, international public good research of the Consultative Research Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), and the requirements of smallholder production systems.

The initiative will build on existing programs and would consist of the following components:

Establishment of an Australian International Food Security Centre to be based at ACIAR in Australia and with regional nodes, commencing in Africa;
An international conference on African food security under the auspices of the new Centre to support consultations on the research thrusts of the Centre as a means of bringing national and international partners together to fully agree priorities and future steps in research and adoption through strong collaborative arrangements.

Purpose

Delivering food security for the world’s poor is a key objective of the Centre.

To this end, the Centre is to support smallholder-driven research partnerships to tackle clearly articulated, major food security challenges that require medium to long-term collaborative efforts.

The Centre will provide funding to build critical mass in research ventures between end-users and researchers.

The Centre will pursue solutions to food security challenges that are innovative, of high impact and capable of being effectively deployed by the end-users.

The Centre will seek to stimulate broader education and training for postgraduate students, particularly research students, to enhance their prospects of contributing to addressing their own countries’ challenges, providing them with the skills needed to utilise research outputs and produce innovative end-user centric solutions.

It will also focus on assisting in the development of research institutions in developing countries.

Modality

The organization of the initiative will benefit from the Australian Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) consortium management principles providing funding to build critical mass in research ventures between end users and researchers, which tackle clearly articulated major food production, nutrition and health challenges for developing country farmers and consumers.

The Centre will improve the effectiveness of Australia's international agricultural research effort by bringing together researchers in the public and private sectors with next and end users.

The Centre will link researchers with industry and government with a focus on application of research products. The close interaction between researchers and the next and end users is the defining characteristic of the Centre. Moreover, it allows next and end users to help plan the direction of the research as well as to monitor its progress.

The Centre will facilitate collaboration of businesses and researchers. This includes private sector organisations (both large and small enterprises), industry associations, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), universities and Australian government research agencies such as the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), national agricultural research systems (NARS) and other end users.

This team of collaborators will undertake research and development leading to utilitarian outcomes for public good that have positive social and economic impacts.

It is intended that the Centre can assemble the best teams in Australia to work with the Centre’s collaborators to develop the innovation that the partner countries needs.

Its objective is to deliver significant economic, environmental and social benefits to developing countries and Australia by supporting end-user driven research partnerships between publicly funded researchers and end-users to address clearly articulated, major challenges that require medium to long-term collaborative efforts.

Activities

The Centre will undertake the following activities:

medium to long-term end-user driven collaborative agricultural research for development;
education and training program at least including, but not limited to, a PhD program that complements the research programs and that builds engagement, innovation and R&D capacity within end-users;
development of strategies that build innovation and R&D capacity; and
utilisation activities to deploy research outputs and encourage take up by smallholder farmers, fishers and foresters.

The Centre will foster "hands-on" learning. While it will be heavily focused on postgraduate education, and thereby providing training for highly skilled professionals, it will also involve, to differing extents, all levels of the education and training system.

International conference on African food security

An international conference on African food security will be held in the second quarter of 2012 under the auspices of the Centre.

The Conference will be foundational in establishing the partnerships and priorities for the new Centre, and will build on the achievements of the IFPRI Conference, Increasing Agricultural Productivity and Enhancing Food Security in Africa, held in Addis Ababa on 1-3 November 2011 and co-sponsored by ACIAR.

Funding

Australian Government funding of $36 million will be provided for the Centre’s activities for an initial period of four (4) years, with follow-on funding anticipated, contingent on satisfactory outcomes of reviews by an independent panel of experts.

Stability of funding provides certainty for the research partners in particular, and also for the end-user partners. Funds are primarily intended for: • salaries for researchers and support staff, fellowships and student stipends, and direct salary on-costs;

the direct support costs of research;
indirect support costs of research; and/or
capital items, such as equipment, but not to purchase, or pay for the construction of facilities such as buildings, laboratories etc.

Participant Contributions

The total amount of funding available to the Centre is determined by participants’ contributions, and a concerted effort will be made to encourage and secure co-contributions from like-minded donors.

Participants in the Centre must contribute resources to the Centre, including cash and in-kind, tied and untied.

Gearing with funds from the Commonwealth and research providers shares both the risks, and the returns. Universities and publicly funded research agencies, such as the CSIRO, are not required to contribute cash resources.

Governance

The Centre will be managed to deliver impact, and held to account to deliver.

It will be guided by a Board with an appropriate balance of skills, experience and independence. The Centre will be led by ACIAR with the manager accountable to the ACIAR CEO.

The Centre’s headquarters and executive will be based at ACIAR, Canberra, with operational nodes established in selected developing countries.

Uncertainty and risk will be managed through effective oversight, monitoring and internal control. The Centre will support flexible governance and management arrangements, including for intellectual property (IP), built around the needs of participants, noting that strong governance and management will be essential to the success of the Centre.

The rights of Centre shareholders and participants will be clearly recognised and upheld.

Strategy and next steps

ACIAR will develop a partnership strategy for the Centre to ensure it builds strong international links with relevant institutions, including links between Australian and African research institutions.

Preparations are also underway for the international Conference on African food security. ACIAR will undertake advocacy activities to promote stakeholder involvement and participation, particularly amongst African institutions, including through related G20 agricultural research initiatives, which will help build momentum towards the establishment of the Centre.