The experts spoke during a panel session themed "Scaling Innovations and technologies for food system transformation".
Agricultural experts, on Thursday, suggested ways to upscale innovations and technologies for food system transformation in Nigeria amidst changing weather patterns in the country.
The experts spoke during a panel session themed "Scaling Innovations and technologies for food system transformation" at the CGIAR and partners Exhibition and Open Day, organised by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and other partners.
The event is part of activities mapped out to further commemorate the World Food Day under the CGIAR - a global research partnership for a food secure future dedicated to transforming food, land and water systems in a climate crisis.
In her remarks, Aline Mugisho, CGIAR country convener, explained that the CGIAR primary role is to produce agricultural innovations and technologies for food system transformation.
"The innovation here today is to make sure that we can communicate the different research, crop varieties and policies that have been developed across board to make sure that the Nigerian food system is put in good shape and then we can also accelerate the sustainable development goal number two - Zero hunger," she said.
Changing the face of farming
She said most of the exhibitors at the event are farmers and that one of the organisation's goals as a research institute is to change the face (wrong perception) of who a farmer is and what farming is about.
"This is one thing we are trying to change, the face of the farmers. For a very long time when they see a farmer, the image has been surrounding a very old, not so good looking person. But farming is a business," Mrs Mugisho said.
She explained that the food they ate comes from the farm and that sometimes the medication they have from the pharmacies comes from the farm.
Based on this, the agriculturist described farmers as "very wealthy people" who are "badly portrayed".
"Farmers are businessmen like any other businessmen. The ones that you see here are exhibiting their enterprises. So if you are into farm production, you are a producer just the way any other producer is," she said.
She explained that CGIAR and FAO are complementary in the ways that they operate to achieve food system transformation goals in Nigeria.
"We produce the innovations, FAO works directly with farmers to ensure that we catalyse those innovations. We produce seeds, they (FAO) need to prove those seeds get to the farmers timely," Mrs Mugisho said in an interview.
"We reach young people and FAO makes sure that we make young people interested in agriculture so that we can have labour that is qualified, that has the capacity and that is fast learning to improve food production both in Africa and beyond."
Climate-smart agriculture
Speaking on innovation for farmers amidst changing weather patterns in Nigeria, the agriculture scientists said the organisation has a centre called IWMI (the International Water Management Institute) that is providing revolutionary innovations in that sector.
However, she explained that the whole process of climate smart agriculture is to make sure that they factor in aspects of climate that are affecting food production and to make sure that the aspects of climate change that are impacting the results of farming and food production are mitigated as much as possible.
"We have tools that we have developed that are looking into weather predictability, that are informing farmers timely of what needs to be done and more," she noted.
Through partnerships, Mrs Mugisho said the FAO, some years ago, developed a system to store rainwater in the Sahel region so that they can have water across the year even though they have a very short period of rainfall yearly.
"Those are some of the collaborations; we call them win-win partnerships where we can capitalise on the low hanging fruits to accelerate food production and the need to leaving no one behind," she said.
Upscaling innovation
Speaking about scaling up innovations to transform food systems in Nigeria, IITA's Head of Germplasm Health Unit, Virology and Molecular Diagnostics Unit, Lava Kumar, said in an effort to scale up innovation, they often take their proven products to areas where they are needed to make necessary transformation.
"It is very important that we take these products that are working, that have been shown to work elsewhere to areas that are most needed to help bring the necessary changes to the people and help build food security," he said.
In her intervention, Mrs Mugisho said what it means for them at the CGIAR to scale innovations is that once innovations within the CGIAR have been proven, they try to ensure that the innovations get to the farmers in the most accurate way.
"We are in the process of ensuring that these innovations get to the end users which are our farmers and ensure that they are used accurately," she said, adding that when information is half given, it is a recipe for disaster.
"These information must be well disseminated, these innovations must be better taken to the farmers," she added.
Speaking on the critical need for food systems transformation, Al-Hassan Cisse, head of FAO Northeast Sub-office, re emphasised the need to exchange innovative ideas among farmers for mutual benefit.
He urged farmers to first understand the reason why food system transformation is important.
"We are talking about transforming food systems because we are in a world that is facing many challenges," Mr Cisse said.
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"By 2050 we will be reaching about 9 billion people, and we might find the scarcity of resources. How can we work the food systems to make it sustainable without compromising the wellbeing of the future generations?"
Food system transformation
Speaking on critical policies required for sustainable food systems transformation, Foluso Adejoro, Netherlands Embassy in Nigeria Policy Advisor on Food Security and Climate, said there is no one-size-fits-all policy.
"There is no stakeholder that knows it all when it comes to policies, that is why collaboration is important, " he said.
To develop good policies, Mr Adejoro said the first line of action is to have "reliable data" and that when the data is available, that is when to look at the available gaps in the system and identify who is best fit to fill the gaps.
"You can then create a round table that brings together all the stakeholders to begin to look at the issues and address them," he said.
More often than not, Mr Adejoro said they hear that in Nigeria the problem is not in policy formulation but in implementation.
In the past few years in Nigeria's agriculture sector, he emphasised, there have been several policies introduced to address food security but it is important to bring major stakeholders together to give priority to certain policies.
