AgMission™ Funds Global Producers’ Consultation to Improve Climate-Smart Agriculture Adoption

Producer engagement and collaboration with researchers is critical to a successful global transition to climate-smart agriculture. The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) and AgMission™ partners awarded a $394,000 grant to the World Farmers’ Organisation (WFO) to develop a novel farmer-driven methodology to consult producers on a global scale and collect unique data and insights on their climate-smart agriculture needs and expectations. AgMission is an initiative co-created by FFAR and the World Farmers’ Organisation to develop and implement climate-smart agriculture solutions.

Understanding producer perspectives on the challenges posed by climate change is critical to ensuring that researchers identify climate-smart agricultural practices that align with farmers’ priorities. This AgMission-funded project, the Global Producers’ Consultation, engages farmers and ranchers comprehensively, allowing producers and scientists to co-create a research agenda that produces actionable insights.

The Global Producers’ Consultation is developing a scientific methodology for consistent data gathering from producers globally that will inform research and implementation projects supporting the growing need for on-farm resiliency. The farmer-driven, comparable data and insights that result from this methodology can be used to support national, regional and global initiatives working towards accelerating the transition to climate-smart agriculture. This project will explore focus areas that include producers’ awareness of and willingness to adopt existing solutions and the systemic barriers to adoption.

The Global Producers’ Consultation will be launched on May 21, 2023 with an in-person dialogue during the WFO 2023 Annual Meeting.

The World Farmers’ Organisation is working with ClimEat on a methodology design that incorporates both scientific rigor and practical farming considerations and allows comparability of data resulting from diverse groups of farmers worldwide. Producers within the WFO global network of members will be consulted during the development of the methodology to ensure the results provide actionable insights. Data resulting from the consultations will be publicly available and can be compared and aggregated to serve further research, advocacy activities and decision-making processes.

“Farmers across the globe believe in science as it can help them activate their true potential to mitigate and adapt to climate change, translating their needs and expectations on climate-smart agriculture into viable, scalable and sustainable solutions,” said the WFO Secretary General Arianna Giuliodori. “The Global Producers’ Consultation represents the first crucial step to effectively build bridges between producers and scientists in the spirit of co-creation of a research agenda that boosts the adoption of climate-smart agriculture practices.”

The results of the consultation will be used to inform the AgMission research agenda, and also inspire agricultural research more broadly. The longer-term impact of this research will be a more conducive environment for farmers to contribute experience and knowledge to both climate mitigation and adaptation efforts.

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Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research

The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) builds public-private partnerships to fund bold research addressing big food and agriculture challenges. FFAR was established in the 2014 Farm Bill to increase public agriculture research investments, fill knowledge gaps and complement the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s research agenda. FFAR’s model matches federal funding from Congress with private funding, delivering a powerful return on taxpayer investment. Through collaboration and partnerships, FFAR advances actionable science benefiting farmers, consumers and the environment.

Connect: @FoundationFAR