How partnerships are scaling agricultural innovation across Africa
At the second BRAINS Steering Committee meeting in Nairobi, partners reflected on how collaboration among researchers, governments, businesses and farmers is helping agricultural innovations reach markets and deliver lasting impact across Africa.
- Agricultural Innovation
- Climate Action
- Climate Resilience
- crops
How partnerships are scaling agricultural innovation across Africa
At the second BRAINS Steering Committee meeting in Nairobi, partners reflected on how collaboration among researchers, governments, businesses and farmers is helping agricultural innovations reach markets and deliver lasting impact across Africa.
Every year, agricultural researchers across Africa develop crop varieties capable of producing higher yields, withstanding drought, resisting pests and improving nutrition. Yet many of these innovations never fulfil their “promise” not because the science falls short, but because the systems needed to support them are often missing. Quality seed is unavailable; markets remain uncertain, investment is limited, and the partnerships required to move research beyond demonstration plots never fully take shape. Increasingly, the challenge facing agricultural development is no longer how to generate innovation, but how to ensure it reaches the people it was designed to serve.
That is the ambition behind the Building Equitable Climate-Resilient African Bean and INsect Sector (BRAINS) Project. Over the past two years, the initiative has shown that agricultural research delivers its greatest and multiple impacts when technological innovations are matched with strong institutional innovations and effective partnerships. By bringing together researchers, governments, private companies, financial institutions and farmer organizations, BRAINS Project is helping move improved technologies beyond research plots and into functioning markets where they can continue creating value long after the research itself is complete.