Dearth of agri-food research on climate-hit countries

Food systems transformation is needed urgently in the face of rising food insecurity – with one in four on the planet facing hunger – and extreme weather events caused by climate change. However, critical evidence on environmental and climate change outcomes in the regions most impacted by climate change is lacking, as is research around women’s empowerment and inclusivity, says Jaron Porciello, co-founder of The Juno Evidence Alliance, a global evidence synthesis platform to support policy-making on agriculture, food systems and climate adaptation.

“There is a lot of research out there, more than one million papers are published every year in the sciences,” Porciello said in an interview with SciDev.Net. “Yet at the same time we still seem to have a lack of research focusing on countries with high levels of food insecurity.”

Juno Evidence Alliance, a collaboration between the agricultural research organisation CABI (the parent organisation of SciDev.Net), Havos.Ai, a New York-based data company, and the University of Notre Dame, USA, used artificial intelligence (AI) to review the distribution of global research over the last 13 years.

It found that, despite 60 per cent growth in research publications across agrifood systems during that time, levels of scientific research targeting the poorest, most climate-vulnerable countries are “extremely low”.

Some countries, including many smaller island nations, are supported by an evidence base of fewer than 1,000 publications spread across more than 35,000 journals, according to the report, titled The State of the Field for Research on Agrifood Systems.

The Philippines, often ranked as one of the countries most affected by extreme climate events, was the focus of 12,443 publications between 2010 and 2023, as compared to Canada, which was the focus of 185,319 for the same period.

The analysis also found that research involving stakeholders in the agriculture value chain – such as small and medium enterprises and small-scale farmers – accounts for only eight per cent of global agrifood systems research.

Evidence gap

Scientific research carried out by universities, national research centres and CGIAR institutions play a pivotal role in shaping global development and food security agendas, according to Porciello, lead author of the report. “Yet there is significant challenge in tracking outcomes including food security across scientific papers.

Scientific research is still measured, communicated and disseminated in a very piecemeal fashion, paper by paper, without putting it in context of what it means in lieu of all of the other research and knowledge that’s out there,” she added.

In an attempt to bridge this gap, researchers from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture calculated the total volume of scientific research papers by thousands, according to the geographic focus of each research article, before analysing the number of research publications per one million people classified as moderate-to-severely hungry.

They found that countries including Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and the Philippines had fewer than 3,000 publications per one million hungry people from the past 13 years.

Many of these countries are also among those that are most vulnerable to climate change, according to the University of Notre Dame’s GAIN index.

“Enduring bias”

Changing these patterns requires challenging long-standing norms around dynamics across science and policy, authors of the Juno report say. They call out the “enduring bias” underpinning scientific publishing and funding systems.

Among their recommendations is a call for more investment to support original research in low-income countries – research that considers the ecological, social, and economic dimensions of food systems. Funders should prioritise investments in women-led research projects and publications, especially from the Global South, they urge.

Addressing these issues demands concerted efforts with funders and scientific publishers to “unmute and empower more researchers”, the Juno report concludes.

(SciDev.Net, Dann Okoth/wi)

Reference: 
Jaron Parciello et al.:” The State of the Field for Research on Agrifood Systems”, Juno report, Cabi Digital Library, June 2024

More information:

• Juno Evidence Alliance
• SciDev.Net website