On foresight and trade-off analysis for agriculture and food systems

Thinking about the future and weighing alternative options are, of course, nothing new. What is new in the context of agri-food systems in recent years is the scale, complexity, and interconnectedness of these systems themselves.

by Keith Wiebe and Steven Prager

The inaugural (January 2021) issue of Q Open, a new open access journal that is a collaboration between the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publication Foundation and the Oxford University Press (OUP), includes a collection of papers coming from a research project undertaken by the Independent Science for Development Council (ISDC) of CGIAR that examines the role of foresight and trade-off analysis in terms of organizational reform and future research agendas.

We were invited to write a commentary on this collection, and this blog is a summary of some key comments (read full commentary here).

The papers and ideas on foresight and trade-off analysis presented in this issue are very timely. They come as our agri-food systems are experiencing severe shocks (immediate as well as longer term) that call for unprecedented responses under a high degree of uncertainty. At the same time, a key part of the international agricultural research system, CGIAR, is undergoing a fundamental restructuring that challenges us with both need and opportunity to rethink research priorities to inform decision making and improve agriculture and food system outcomes.

Thinking about the future and weighing alternative options are, of course, nothing new. What is new in the context of agri-food systems in recent years is the scale, complexity, and interconnectedness of these systems themselves. READ MORE>>