Ten principles for effective AR4D programs

The numerous challenges in agricultural research for development (AR4D) include paralysis in the face of complexity and weak mechanisms for engagement and negotiation among relevant stakeholders (Sayer and Campbell 2004, Hall et al. 2014; Harrington and Fisher, 2014). Climate change-related research comes with additional challenges. Agriculture and food systems are at the nexus of three of the grand challenges of the 21st Century: food insecurity, adapting to climate change (both longer-term trends and greater frequency and intensity of extremes), and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Uncertainty around future pathways and complex causal relationships create difficulties for clear-cut decisions (Vermeulen et al. 2013) and exacerbate scepticism and inaction. Solutions to the grand challenges require working from farmers’ fields to global processes, forging linkages across the environment-agriculture divide, building bridges between the global change community and the agricultural community, and giving equal attention to technology, institutions, power and process.