More than 90 delegates from 21 countries around the world attended the Euragri Conference in Teagasc’s facility in Ashtown, Dublin, last month. Euragri is the European Agricultural Research Initiative that acts as a forum for representatives from public research and innovation institutes, universities, funding bodies and ministries engaged in research and innovation in the agri-food sector and the broader bioeconomy.
This year's conference, which was chaired by Gerry Boyle of Teagasc, looked at how new scientific, technical, societal and political developments influence not only the agenda for research but also research structures, resource requirements, education and training programmes and interfaces with partners and the users of research. It also explored their impact on research funding and management and the way research is evaluated and monitored.
Speakers from around the world addressed a variety of topics including the strategic management of agricultural and life sciences research organisations, diversity and its strategic importance for future European agricultural, food and bio-economy research, and the interaction of research with different actors.
A particular area of focus was the role that agricultural research and innovation will play in meeting many of the most serious challenges facing humanity in the coming decades.
Ciaran Mangan, director general for research and innovation with the European Commission explained how EU research programmes can assist in meeting the challenges facing agriculture. "The socio-economic importance of our food and nutrition systems can hardly be underestimated," he said. "They are central to the EU's economy with 48 million people employed from farm to fork or one fifth of the workforce, generating 6 per cent of GDP and 7 per cent of external EU trade."
He noted that food and nutrition systems are under pressure due to compounded effects of population growth, urbanisation, migration, resource scarcity, and climate change.
“Globally, the increase of demand for animal protein is unsustainable,” he added. “The double burden of nutrition needs to be addressed; 795 million people still go hungry and are underweight or malnourished while two billion people are overweight or obese. Research and innovation are crucial to address this perfect storm.”
The EU is proposing a framework called “Food 2030” – which takes a “food system approach” to address research and innovation across the bioeconomy in the fish and agri-food sectors.
“It will adopt a whole food chain approach to research and innovation and connect land and sea, farm to fork to gut and back, producer to consumer, and engage a wide diversity of actors. It will scale up research and innovation by boosting investment, education, skills and capacities. It will also act as a global platform to convene a wide diversity of stakeholders.”
‘Unprecedented challenges’
Knowledge-sharing officer for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Nevena Alexandrova-Stefanova addressed the interaction between research and communities. "Today, the world community faces unprecedented and escalating challenges in relation to agriculture," she said.
“There is a challenge in world demographics. We must nourish 9.7 billion people by 2050, urbanisation and the ageing of the rural population is another challenge, there is an energy challenge and we have no cheap sources of energy, and there is an environmental challenge with the erosion of biodiversity, land degradation, climate change and so on. By 2050, we will need 60 per cent more food, 50 per cent more energy and 40 per cent more water.”
Agricultural innovations will play a role in the solutions, she added. “Agricultural innovations are much needed to address community development issues and should be part of community development. Strengthening innovation capacities is needed at all levels and there should be incentives for researchers to be engaged at community level both through access to regional funds and adjustments in the accreditation system.”
Joe Crockett, chair of the Dairy Sustainability Working Group, outlined an Irish effort to tackle the challenges presented by growing global demand for food. He explained that the National Dairy Sustainability Initiative was established at the end of 2016 by a group of dairy co-ops with participation by Government departments, agencies, local authorities and farm representative bodies.
Its objectives include addressing the sustainability objectives set out in the government’s Food Wise 2025 strategy; and developing environmental programmes and strategies to underpin and advance Origin Green with a focus on improving on farm performance.
“We recognise that environmental sustainability and economic sustainability are complementary,” Crockett said. “This is the first industry sustainability initiative involving the whole Government and the whole dairy sector. It will address water, soil and air quality, as well as climate change targets on a multi-annual basis to achieve Food Wise Sustainability objectives. Agricultural research organisations have a major role to play in economic development and local, regional, national and EU structures should be more reflective of this.”