Scaling Agricultural Innovations through Private Sector Engagement

Agricultural institutions face mounting global pressures as demand for nutritious and safe food rises sharply. This demand is compounded by population growth, urbanization, climate change, and conflicts. While agricultural Research and Development (R&D) institutions consistently produce innovative solutions, their uptake remains limited due to a lack of investment in making the innovations known and available to farmers in a sustainable , as well as narrow dissemination channels. Funding cuts and under-resourced research-extension systems further constrain effectiveness, often influenced by inconsistent commitment from national governments and development partners.

The prevailing dynamics between R&D institutions and the private sector have often been characterized by a disjointed, "siloed approach". From the perspective of many private sector players, whose core business is fundamentally "to make money", engagement with R&D entities like those in the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) has historically been transactional. The immediate question asked is often: "Do they have a database that we can use?" If the answer is no, the perceived value of engaging is instantly questioned, leading to the conclusion: "Is it worth it then now even to engage?". This transactional mindset mirrors a historical failing within R&D itself: a lack of intentionality. Strategic plans often lack dedicated sections or stakeholder lists designed to leverage private sector teams or companies systematically. At the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), we recognize that maximizing the impact of cutting-edge research outputs requires more than just sharing findings; it necessitates a radical shift toward intentional collaboration and investment. This new paradigm transforms research outputs into market-relevant solutions, leveraging the specific strengths the private sector possesses but R&D institutions often lack.

The Transactional Trap: Why Current Engagement Fails

From the perspective of many private sector players, whose core business is fundamentally "to make money"/ “Return on investment’’, engagement with R&D entities like those in CGIAR has historically been transactional. The immediate questions asked are often: "Do they have a database that we can use?" “Has it proven to work under real farming conditions?" If the answer is no, the perceived value of engaging is instantly questioned, leading to the conclusion: "Is it worth it now even to engage?" 

This transactional mindset mirrors a historical failing within R&D itself: a lack of intentionality. Strategic plans often lack dedicated sections or stakeholder lists designed to leverage private sector teams or companies systematically. Moving ahead, this forward-looking vision requires overcoming these challenges by systematically integrating tools, establishing structural licensing and legal frameworks, and forming partnerships. This complex process is necessary to make both the R&D and private sectors "relevant to the industry and market".

The Intentional Solution: Evidence-Based Decision Support

Moving ahead, this forward-looking vision requires overcoming these challenges by systematically integrating tools, establishing structural licensing and legal frameworks, and fostering strong partnerships. This complex process is necessary to make both the R&D and private sectors "relevant to the industry and market".

The transition from siloed thinking to intentional integration is best demonstrated by IITA's deployment of the Aflatoxin Risk Early Warning System (A-EWS). This open-source tool is a GeoAI-powered decision support system designed to address the significant health risk posed by aflatoxin contamination in maize grain. Unlike traditional research that offers broad, generalized conclusions, the A-EWS is engineered for site-specific business application:

• Data Integration: The risk map integrates historical data on pre-harvest aflatoxin contamination from crop samples collected from 907 unique farms across Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, and Tanzania between 2009 and 2022, remote sensing data, and machine learning models. Explanatory parameters include air temperature, precipitation, elevation, and soil physical properties.
• Business Risk Mitigation: The tool is critical in generating site-specific advisories. This enables grain buyers to identify localities with the highest risk, allowing them to adjust their procurement and sourcing strategies accordingly. This means that these businesses will source better grains and leave contaminated ones for lower-grade use.
• Resource Efficiency: The tool enables evidence-based targeting of interventions. By guiding control measures, such as determining the suitability and timing for scaling out the Aflasafe biocontrol product, the system enables IITA and its partners to move away from conventional blanket recommendations. This targeted approach prevents wasteful practices often associated with generalized advice, maximizing efficient resource allocation by both governments and private input suppliers. Applying biocontrol is akin to insurance; it protects crops from aflatoxin formation that may occur after harvest due to adverse conditions during storage, transport, or processing.

IITA's Strategies to Build Private Sector Partnerships

To overcome the challenges of scaling innovations, IITA employs a strategic intermediation approach designed to bridge the gap between innovation and market uptake through structured collaboration with the private sector.

• Upstream Co-creation of Solutions: IITA and partners engages stakeholders at the onset of projects to co-create innovations, leveraging market intelligence, product profiling, demand intelligence, and regulatory requirements, ensuring solutions address real market needs within context.
• Formalizing Transactions and Engagement: Investment and technology transfer are facilitated through mechanisms including investor forums and structural Technology Transfer and Licensing Agreements. Although establishing these legal and licensing frameworks has been challenging, they are now in place and critical for sustained collaboration.
• Dedicated Platforms for Engagement: IITA offers platforms for ideation, co-creation, incubation, and acceleration to foster active private sector participation.
• Rigorous Scalability Assessment: The viability of innovations is meticulously evaluated after extensive field testing under real farming conditions, using tools such as Scaling Readiness assessments, e-catalogues, and clearinghouses to ensure market readiness and scalability.
• Market-Focused Commercialization: Clear market assessments and commercialization strategies guide the uptake and diffusion of innovation into agricultural value chains, including mass production planning.

These systematic approaches underpin a substantial financial commitment: Since 2015, IITA and its partners have invested approximately $ 15 million toward commercializing innovations through these structured intermediation efforts.

Building Enabling Policy Environments

Recognizing that innovation scaling is impossible without a supportive ecosystem, IITA invests effort in cultivating enabling policy environments:

• Policy Analysis and Advocacy: IITA's structural approach includes ongoing policy analysis and advocacy to create favorable conditions for innovation adoption by addressing technical, regulatory, institutional, and market barriers.
• Engagement with Governments and Partners: The strategy fosters multi-stakeholder cooperation among farmer organizations, research institutions, private enterprises, development partners, regulators, and governments, thereby strengthening collective action to accelerate the adoption of food systems innovation.
• Addressing National Priorities and Challenges: IITA incorporates political dynamics, such as varying political will and priorities like youth employment, to ensure better alignment and uptake of innovations at national and regional levels.

The Call for Co-Creation: Data Sharing as a Strategic Asset

Moving beyond tool development, IITA is advancing collaboration by inviting private sector partners to co-own the innovation ecosystem. For example, the upcoming A-EWS mobile App will enable partners to upload standardized, geotagged contamination data, directly improving model accuracy and boosting system reliability. This initiative represents the highest level of intentional collaboration, where data sharing is framed as a strategic investment that benefits all stakeholders.

Partners are encouraged to:

• Share geotagged contamination data to refine prediction accuracy.
• Disseminate the tool widely through forums such as the Africa Grain Trade Summit.
• Provide feedback and suggestions for enhancing predictive capabilities, including early outbreak forecasting and detection.

A Vision for the Future

"The future of agricultural innovation depends not just on breakthroughs in the lab, but on building purposeful partnerships that align research with market realities. Intentionality in collaboration is what transforms isolated ideas into scalable solutions that truly impact farmers and consumers," says Matieyedou Konlambigue, highlighting the critical role of structured engagement between R&D institutions and the private sector.

Integrating R&D outputs with market realities requires intentional, strategic leadership, political will, and systematic implementation. "One of the most important things we learn over the year is that delivery of innovation at scale will not happen on its own. It must be intentional, planned, and steered. It requires an intermediation function, recognized and funded, to facilitate the required ecosystem and connect the innovation developers to systems actors. This means connecting innovations with markets and ensuring that they are not only developed but also adopted and used at scale," added Matieyedou. 

Therefore, IITA, supported by the CGIAR Scaling for Impact Program, is working to build a natural home for the private sector and scientists to combine business solutions and capabilities with excellent research products and innovations, delivering healthy people, a healthy planet, and a healthy economy.

Structural licensing mechanisms, platforms for collaboration, and enabling policy frameworks are now in place, but fully embedding these requires forward-looking leaders ready to push the agenda. This approach marks a new chapter in which African agricultural innovations can transition from isolated successes to scaled, systemic solutions supported by strong R&D and Private sector partnerships.

Finally, a key concern remains whether the model will provide information early enough to allow biocontrol products to be manufactured, distributed, and applied by farmers in a timely manner, thereby ensuring their effectiveness. Applying biocontrol products should not be viewed as wasteful even if aflatoxin contamination does not occur in each season. Like insurance, biocontrol use protects against the unpredictable nature of aflatoxin risk. While contamination may not immediately develop after harvest, adverse conditions during storage, transport, or processing often lead to toxin formation. Prior application ensures crop protection, safeguarding food safety and market value.