Mr Chairman,
Fellow Panelists
Distinguished Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would first like to thank Dr. Ismail Serageldin, Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, for organizing this important conference. These meetings provide an invaluable opportunity to learn from each other, sharing our experiences and ideas.

I am delighted to be here today here in Egypt, the bread basket of the ancient world, and in this spot of ancient learning. Over the millennia, Egypt has given the world so much, and yet in many ways the nation seems younger today than it did even two years ago.

And, as a former research scientist, it is always a pleasure to spend time in the company of fellow scientists.

There is a direct and strong link between investment in research and the elimination of poverty and hunger.

As a scientist, I like to base my conclusions on solid evidence, so let me share some numbers with you from the International Food Policy Research Institute:

In China, one person was lifted out of poverty for every US$109 spent on agricultural research.

In Uganda, the impact of research was even more dramatic, with one person lifted from poverty for every US$16 spent on research.

A separate report by the CGIAR indicates that US$1 spent on agricultural research produces US$9 worth of added food in developing countries.

Science and technology are the foundation of agricultural development because they can generate pro-poor technologies.

For example, it was research that generated Quality Protein Maize. QPM has been widely used by farmers and is reducing malnutrition among adults and babies in developing countries.

 It was also research that generated high yielding cassava varieties in West Africa.

And it was research – that I’m proud to say I had a hand in – that led to the elimination of the cassava mealy bug through an Africa-wide Biological Control Programme.

As a result of this IFAD-funded research programme, at least 20 million lives were saved in the cassava belt of sub-Saharan Africa, as well as about US$2.2 billion in production. The total cost of the programme was only US$20 million.  In other words, for every dollar spent, one life was saved.

Our theme for discussion today is one that is dear to my heart.

Sustainability for all. It sounds like a lofty goal, but I can tell you that sustainability is well within our reach. I know this from my 20 years of working as a research scientist at the CGIAR, my 10 years leading the Africa Rice Centre, and the five years I have now spent in the world of rural development at IFAD.

There are three pillars to the Sustainable Development agenda:  economic, environmental and social. Smallholder agriculture is central to all three elements.

When development is sustainable, the benefits last, through the years and the generations. It is development that respects and responds to local conditions, whether cultural or environmental, so that the changes are able to take root and continue after the aid workers and development agencies have left.

We have all seen the aftermath of what happens when development is not sustainable – we have seen the broken tractors, abandoned in the fields, the withered and untended trees, the forsaken hillside terraces.

In Mauritania, IFAD is working with smallholders to promote sustainable solutions to combat desertification and mitigate the impact of Prosopis juliflora, an invasive tree. It was initially introduced to protect the oases from sand encroachment, but is crowding out the local palm trees and depleting ground water.

These examples of good intentions gone bad are the results of interventions that did not properly respond to the local ecology or terrain, or where the sociology or psychology of local populations was not fully understood.

As scientists and researchers, we tend to focus on biological and physical experiences. But in my years of working in development, I have learned that science has the greatest impact when it is combined with an understanding of the softer sciences. 

In order for science to truly improve the conditions of poor rural people, scientists must understand the environment where their discoveries will be used, and the needs of the people who live there. 

In other words, if we want our work to be sustainable, we must apply the same rigour of thought to understanding the social dimension of local communities and the ecological dimension of local landscapes as we apply to our research in the laboratory.

At IFAD, we see time and time again the transformation that occurs when development is sustainable and when local people are involved from the start.

Last year, I visited Zongbega, a village in a drought-prone region of Burkina Faso, where smallholders are using simple water harvesting techniques such as planting pits and permeable rock dams, along with crop-livestock integration. As a result, they have restored land that was once degraded and have increased their productivity thanks to low-input, yet high-output, pro-poor innovations.

In Niger, a water harvesting project in the Illela department is still going, more than 15 years after the funding ended. The project encouraged farmers to improve traditional planting pits and half-moons.  The pits are dug before the rains. They collect and store rainfall and run-off.  The half-moons are earth embankments in the shape of a semi-circle. They are much larger than the pits and are also used to capture run-off water.

Although the project ended in 1996, a return to the area in January 2012 showed that farmers are continuing to make pits and half-moons.

And there is considerable anecdotal evidence that the water harvesting techniques are recharging the groundwater. In the village of Batodi, the water level in wells increased by 14 meters between 1994 and 2004 which has led to the creation of 10 vegetable gardens around wells. The increase is unlikely to be the result of rainfall, since 2004 and 2011 were both drought years.

The adoption of simple water harvesting techniques  forces rainfall and runoff to infiltrate and it locally  recharges the groundwater.

Twenty years ago, the fields around the village of Batodi were completely barren. Today, they have higher on-farm tree densities which  helps to keep the soil fertile and provides fodder for livestock.

This is a fine example of the benefits of community-driven development.

As you can see from these examples, and from the film I am about to show you, it is not always the most advanced technology that reaps the greatest rewards. Sometimes, the best way to grow food in an arid climate is to go back to basics, building a rock dam to stabilize soil and collect water runoff, or constructing  cisterns to collect rain water.

This is particularly true in areas such as Africa’s drylands, where soils are inherently poor.  It is vital to first increase soil organic matter content, which determines whether inorganic fertilizers can be used efficiently, but also leads to more infiltration of rainfall and increase the water holding capacity of topsoil.

Not only does rural development contribute to food security, it can help stem the flood of immigrants to cities and provide career opportunities for young people.  To answer the question of what is happening in the often neglected left-behind countryside, I would like to show you a short film about a village in northern Mali.

As you can see, creating economic opportunities in rural areas can lead to reverse migration. We have seen this in many of our projects.

And as the film makes clear, young people are the life-blood of their communities. About 90 per cent of today’s young people are born in developing countries, where around half of the total population lives in rural areas.

When these young people are forced to leave their homes to search for work, their villages start to die. But when they can make a good living at home, their energy and creativity can be channeled into reviving their villages. 

When you consider that developing countries will need to double their food production by 2050 to meet projected demand, you can see that it is imperative to create vibrant rural economies that offer attractive opportunities to young people.

We will need our young people to be the farmers and food processors of tomorrow, not just to feed themselves and their villages, but to grow the food to feed the growing population in urban areas in developing countries. After all, farming is primarily a rural activity.

Vibrant rural areas can ensure a dynamic flow of economic benefits between rural and urban areas so that nations have balanced and sustained development.

Investing in young rural people is a simple but elegant solution to some of the world’s most pressing problems. It helps eliminate poverty and hunger, it curtails migration to cities and abroad, and it lays a solid foundation for national, regional and global security.

It is unfortunate that we have recently had to suspend our work in the North of Mali where the project is based. But the current situation in Mali underscores the absolutely crucial need to create steady, reliable, and reasonably paid work for young people in rural areas. 

Young people with prospects will build the foundations for their future. Young people without prospects have nothing to lose, and are more easily swayed by extreme rhetoric.

When rural communities offer young people a range of income-generating opportunities to choose from more will decide to stay in the villages and resist the call of often dead-end futures in the cities, abroad or in extreme religious or political movements.

But in order for rural development to take root and hold, we cannot look at issues in isolation. There is no point increasing a farmer’s yield if that farmer does not have storage facilities for surplus production, or if there is no demand for what they are growing.

 There is no point increasing yields if the infrastructure does not exist for farmers to be able to get their produce to market.

As scientists, when we look at how best to support small holder farmers we must not only improve their ability to grow food, we must strengthen their ability to participate in markets, while also improving the way those markets function.

More than one third of the rural population of Saharan Africa lives five hours from the nearest market town, contributing to unacceptably high transport and marketing costs.

We must ensure that there is sufficient investment in rural infrastructure, with paved roads, adequate transportation and storage facilities to allow farmers to get their produce to market instead of watching it waste on the farm.

 And we must ensure a space and a role for the private sector.  Private sector involvement, ranging from large companies to small famers and their organizations, is critical in allowing agriculture to contribute most effectively to food and nutrition security.

If a farmer cannot profitably market her surplus, there is no logical reason to produce more than her family can store or consume. There is no motivation to adopt productivity enhancing technologies, particularly external inputs which are costly and, in any event, not likely to be available.

I say ‘she’ because women are often the farmers of the developing world. Unfortunately, women are also usually the most disadvantaged members of rural societies. 

Yet it is estimated that giving women equal access would reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 100 to 150 million people. And we know, from a number of studies, that when women earn money, they are more likely than men to spend it on food for the family. 

In addition to improving rural economies, we must change the perception of farming so that young people stop trying to escape the farm and instead look at farming as an attractive option; something that is as appealing as a career in high-tech, in fashion or industry. This means affording dignity to all wage-generating work, whether tilling the fields, running the village store or heading a small business.

And, of course, as scientists we must also consider the impact of our work on the physical environment. Agricultural research successfully drove the first Green Revolution in Asia, but as we have seen in the decades that followed, too often it came at too great a cost to the environment and local species. And all too often, the spectacular gains of early years could not be sustained.

It has become clear that agricultural growth must be ecologically sustainable and that a diverse range of species, genetic variation and ecosystems is necessary in order for the land to provide for future generations of farmers.

In the years since the Asian Green Revolution, we have also become more aware of climate change and its impact on agriculture and smallholder farmers. In recognition of this, and to help implement IFAD’s  environment policy and climate change strategy, we have developed a ground-breaking initiative:  the Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme –- or ASAP – which will help channel finance into climate-smart, sustainable investments in poor smallholder communities.

We have many tools at our disposal, including biotechnology. Agricultural biotechnologies, including Marker Assisted Selection, Marker Assisted Breeding, tissue culture and embryo rescue techniques offer many benefits. They can boost productivity, improve the tolerance of seeds and plants to drought, temperature stress and pests, and make nutrient use more efficient.

But we must recognize that biotechnology is only a tool. It is not an end in itself.

Indeed, in many developing countries, simply optimizing conventional approaches, such as the  use of fertilizers and micro-irrigation, could yield dramatic results.

For example, in Africa only about 6 per cent of the total cultivated land is irrigated, compared with 37 per cent in Asia.

It is estimated that irrigation alone could increase output by up to 50 per cent in Africa.

Small increases in fertilizer use can produce dramatic improvements in yields without risk to the environment, since farmers in sub-Saharan Africa use, on average, less than 13 kilogrammes of fertilizer per hectare. This compares with 73 kilogrammes in the Middle East and North Africa, and 190 kilogrammes in East Asia and the Pacific.

A fertilizer micro-dosing technique developed by ICRISAT and its partners is helping farmers grow more food without exploiting the soil by using a bottle cap to measure out small, affordable amounts of fertilizer.

Our challenge is to take what we know works, to develop what we know is needed, tailor it to the local environment, and to apply our knowledge, country-by-country, region-by-region, throughout the developing world.

As I advocate for more investment in research, let me be clear – research for the sake of research is wasteful and pointless.  Research, ultimately, needs to have an application.

It is our job to ensure that science and technology contribute to the improvement of rural areas. And it is our job, as responsible scientists, to ensure that our work contributes to nurturing and preserving ecosystems.

Agricultural research can ensure that the smallholder, the fisherman, the pastoralist, the forest dweller and the herder have the means to adapt to climate change. It can ensure that poor rural people, whose lives and livelihoods depend on the earth’s productive capacity, have the means to produce more and to produce it better.

But in order for it to move from the lab to the field, it needs to respond to the local environment and it must be supported by enabling policies that link research to products and markets. Research into applications that benefit both the public and private sectors can foster partnerships that are essential in building sound societies.

Thank you.

Alexandria, Egypt
25 April 2012