Riding a Wave of Interest in Agriculture

Somewhat to the surprise of many CGIAR communicators, the mass media worldwide have devoted major attention to agriculture over the last year or so. This is largely a result of widespread concern about rising food prices, the expected impacts of global climate change on farming and the connections between both these issues and the biofuels boom. Increased coverage has also been stimulated by positive developments such as the creation of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

This article is the first in a series of updates on media coverage of CGIAR-supported research. By making "Media Spotlight" a regular feature of CGIAR e-News, we hope to give readers a sense of the widening scope of that coverage, while raising awareness of CGIAR initiatives being undertaken to generate further rounds of reporting.

Seizing the opportunity

Following years of relative media neglect, particularly in the international arena, the sudden swell of interest in agriculture represents a valuable opportunity for international agricultural research, one that is unprecedented in recent years. By stepping up media outreach, the CGIAR can heighten its profile, reaffirm the relevance of its work to new challenges and draw merited attention to important outcomes of its collaborative research.

Communications specialists in the CGIAR Centers and Secretariat have worked hard in recent months to seize the opportunity of heightened media interest. The coverage generated, with valuable help from private sector partners, builds on the strong momentum created by a series of news story promotions during 2007. Those stories followed major reporting on the CGIAR's message about agriculture and global climate change at the 2006 Annual General Meeting in Washington, DC.

Collective and individual efforts in media outreach have paid off handsomely, giving rise to extensive coverage of CGIAR-related research, positioning our organization among major media as a valuable resource and identifying our scientists as key spokespersons on high-profile issues.

On occasion, the coverage has even opened up new funding windows for Centers. But the more modest and realistic aim of media outreach is to create new excitement about the CGIAR and a growing sense of its relevance and value among investors and other stakeholders. Those gains, in turn, should create a more favorable atmosphere for building research partnerships, fostering policy debate and raising funds.

AGM07 in Beijing

As in 2006, this AGM provided an important occasion for media outreach, a task in which the CGIAR Secretariat and Center colleagues worked closely with two firms, Across China and Burness Communications.

The centerpiece of this initiative was a report on the world food situation, presented by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). A news release prepared by IFPRI was widely promoted with international media outlets, of which more than 15 registered to attend AGM07. This resulted in substantive articles carried by influential publications around the world, including Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, The Guardian, Le Monde, Wall Street Journal Europe and Süddeutsche Zeitung.

In addition, a "briefing report" on world food prices in The Economist included IFPRI findings, and a Washington Post editorial on December 12 used them in calling on governments to examine carefully the potential impacts of biofuel subsidies on global food prices. Numerous wire service stories in more than seven languages resulted in online pick-up by top media outlets, such as CNN Online, New York Times Online, TIME.com and International Herald Tribune Online.

Media outreach at AGM07 also dealt with the CGIAR Science Awards and with the announcement of a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant for the CGIAR's African Women in Agricultural Research and Development Program. The latter was heavily covered by major African newspapers, including Business Daily, East African and The Standard in Kenya; Daily Independent and This Day in Nigeria; and Daily Monitor and New Vision in Uganda.

The AGM07 in general was massively covered by Chinese media. In fact, the CGIAR Director was recently informed that AGM07 was determined to be the most widely reported agricultural event in the Chinese media for the entire year.

Climate Change Conference in Bali

Also in December, the thirteenth Conference of the Parties (COP-13) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bali presented another opportunity for the CGIAR to step into the limelight with the promotion of "Do Trees Grow on Money?" a report by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) released in conjunction with Forest Day at the COP. CIFOR's timely report on the hot topic of deforestation's contribution to climate change and the potential for avoided deforestation to form part of the solution for mitigation in the post-2012 climate agreement became a high profile news story. The communications unit at CIFOR, Burness Communications, and the CGIAR Secretariat communications staff joined forces for an international promotion that received coverage in International Herald Tribute, Financial Times, El Pais in Spain, Le Figaro in France, Jakarta Post in Indonesia, and Tagesspeigel in Germany, just to name a few. Several wires such as Reuters, Associated Press (AP), and Agence France Press (AFP) and on-line news sources also carried the story.

CGIAR ships seed to Svalbard

Immediately after AGM07 and COP13, CGIAR communicators began preparing for a major collective effort to publicize the smoothly coordinated shipment of tons of seed of some 200,000 crop samples from 10 CGIAR genebanks to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The facility was built by the Norwegian government to serve as a safeguard of last resort for the genetic heritage of world agriculture; operating costs are being covered by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, based at Bioversity International.

Since the official opening of the Vault in late February was expected to generate huge coverage, a news release on CGIAR Center seed shipments - putting the focus on the living contents of the vault - was developed and promoted a month in advance. Burness Communications prepared and promoted the story, with the active participation of the CGIAR Secretariat and several Centers, especially the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), International Potato Center (CIP) and International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). About 10 wire services wrote stories, and dozens of reports appeared in broadcast, print and online media. Because the release was heavily promoted with the Mexico City press pool and with other media in Latin America, coverage in that region was especially intense.

Maintaining the momentum

In the months since the Svalbard story promotion, the work of the CGIAR Centers has continued to occupy the media spotlight. For example, a Gates Foundation grant to the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) for the development of "climate-hardy rice" caught the attention of several wire services as well as the Wall Street Journal and Nature. IRRI has also been quite active in bringing attention to the consequences of serious rice shortages in Asia through articles in The Economist and other major media. IFPRI has likewise continued to figure importantly in news stories about food price inflactioin.

In mid-April, CGIAR communicators held their second workshop on news story development at the Addis Ababa campus of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The group of about 25 communicators, representing 10 Centers, identified and developed a new set of story ideas for promotion with the media during the rest of 2008. The story development workshops are proving to be a highly effective mechanism for maintaining the momentum of CGIAR media coverage and for building the capacity of CGIAR communicators to advance this important task.