A concrete example of this is the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS). http://bit.ly/XJGx8r They are developing their strategy through community empowerment and then through this working with the communities to identify the interventions and research required http://bit.ly/Qez1Oq

Although the CRPs could be criticised for not progressing they are taking time to get their focus right through investing in understanding the needs, opportunities and desires of the farmers themselves. Techniques such as of community visioning, demand surveys, partner surveys, political analysis etc have all used to mitigate the problems you describe. Have a look at their site for more information on their approach http://bit.ly/UwJzap

Obviously, the work of the CGIAR Consortium and its partners results in huge amounts of agricultural and natural resource data from across the world. Managing this knowledge—collecting information, analyzing it, reporting the findings, and synthesizing the content for different contexts—is a must for planning and tracking the progress not only of our work, but also for organizing it so that others can find and use it, so our research can actually have impact.

The CGIAR Consortium is tackling the issue from a number of perspectives. This website for example automatically aggregates information from over 140 websites of CGIAR Research Programs and Research Centers. Content is up-to-date, concise and relevant. And our policies are evolving to maximize these efforts. (See recent posts describing our activities towards open access. http://www.cgiar.org/consortium-news/topics/open-access/.) In addition, the reformed CGIAR is taking performance management very seriously, and the relevance of research is going to be measurable in terms of impact in the future.

Although I recognize the frustration, I have been encouraged by recent conversations — particularly at GCARD2 but in other places as well — where scientists HAVE been saying it is their responsibility to make their findings more practical and useful. It won’t happen overnight, but the tide is turning.

And we cannot do it alone. Working through partnerships with other donors, implementers, policymakers, agriculture organizations and countries, we are looking to improve the way that data is captured, synthesized, and shared in more practical ways. CIARD is just one example (www.ciard.net).

It’s great to read these comments because they confirm the need for more practical access to key data, information, and knowledge — which we at the CGIAR Consortium are committed to making happen.

Piers Bocock
Director of Knowledge Management & Communication, CGIAR Consortium

However, Rupert in my view, is not the only one facing this problem with CGIAR. It is faced by many who seek practical knowledge and advice. Unfortunately, CGIAR (and specially CRP) donors who fund these kinds of global, cross regional and cross country research projects often face and want big questions to be answered (what will hapen to poverty in 50 years, what kind of people will face more poverty, where the global climate is going, what can be done at global scale). And thus scientists design big projects that have big numbers (as data as well as as results), as well as big assumptions. The little guy, like the farmer in Pakistani Punjab, or in Kyrgyz mountains, or in Sahel of Africa, needs answers specific to his/ her situation (people whom Ruppert is trying to serve) but can not pay for the services of scientists. At the intermediate levels are people like Ruppert, NGOs or extension and information services, who would like to interpret these big numbers to a local level, but the scientific knowledge is not available in languages they would understand. Scientists do not think it is their responsibility. Governments in developing (as well as developed) countries have their own political problems (fiscal crises, terrorism, tarde, etc) and the politicians forming the governments are only interested to solve a problem if that helps them to win next election! So who will actually make this knowledge available to the poor guy who needs it? Perhaps nobody unless the scientific centers and donors together make commitments to cater to that!

Policy intentions mentioned above are good, but need much more to make things happen. Scientists need to work with farmers to understand the research question farmers have, and analyze the problem together with them to be holistic in their analysis, and verify and validate options together with farmers to be able to say with confidence that their recommended innovative solutions have potential to solve the problem really under the conditions in which the farmer lives- and does not require changing the complete world before these innovative solutions start delivering!!

Lahore

There is indeed a lot of confusion about how climate change information can be used to help producers. Climate data shows that there are long term trends, trends operating at more or less decade time scales and inter-annual variability. In all cases, inter-annual variability is the largest part of the variation and this is what creates problems for producers.

The International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University collaborates with CCAFS and with CRP6 on Trees, Forests and Agroforestry. They have developed a nice tool that we are using in our research. The tool analyzes trends in temperature and rainfall and partitions the variation into short, medium and long term trends.

The tool does not predict the future, and most predictions of the future are for such long term trends that growers will not find them useful. What the tool does is allow you to understand how things are varying today and how they have varied in the recent past in specific places. It doesn’t cove the whole world because there are places where data are not available. But I think growers who need information for the next 10 to 20 years can make assessments with this understanding of recent history and as a consultant you can use this tool in many situations.

Of course, predicting the future is always difficult and predicting tipping points is nearly impossible (think of the stock market, for example). The tool will not help with this. But it can help you understand if you are in a medium term increasing or decreasing trend, whether reasonable expectations for inter-annual rainfall variation is 100 mm or 500 mm, and how trends have been changing over the past 50 years or so.

In our work in CRP6, we are using this analysis to develop research to support policies and best management practices to deal with climate variability and climate change.

The tool can be found at http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/maproom/.Global/.Time_Scales/

Let me know if you find this helpful.

Best regards,

Lou Verchot