Thur 18 Nov, 2021

Time: 1800 - 2000 hrs CET

​Join via Zoom: https://fao.zoom.us/j/98559695490

Meeting ID: 985 5969 5490
Passcode: 77670384

Partners in GFAR are preparing to hold a side event to the 2nd International Agro Biodiversity Congress to discuss how current trends towards transforming research and innovation need to be more inclusive of local and indigenous knowledge systems. The discussion will focus on the paradigm shift required towards democratizing research and innovation to produce transformative knowledge for agroecology, food sovereignty and biocultural diversity. 

Concerned Partners in GFAR aim to highlight the depth of farmers' expertise in cultivating traditional crops—so called ‘forgotten foods’—as sources of a nutritious and stable food supply. Despite acting as custodians of this rich biodiversity for centuries and agricultural researchers in their own right, smallholder farmers and indigenous people have been left behind by formal agricultural research. 

A new approach is needed to not only to put forgotten foods on-the-radar of research but also to fully unleash their potential. By marrying farmer-based insight with formal research, the way can be paved for a new paradigm built on co-research and co-innovation, rooted in the principles of fruitful exchanges between equally valid knowledge systems.  

In the context of GFAR’s Collective Action on Forgotten Foods, rural communities in Africa and Asia have been consulted, together with a range of other stakeholders, to develop a Global Manifesto on Forgotten Foods. Recently completed continent-wide consultations promoted by GFAR in Africa (through FARA), Near East and North Africa (through AARINENA), and in Asia-Pacific (through APAARI), have confirmed a strong interest to engage research and innovation systems to reinvigorate these crops by identifying—with farmers themselves—the best solutions in seed selection, conservation and multiplication, value addition, marketing and culinary applications.  

The Manifesto indicates key avenues for supporting effectively and appropriately the use of traditional and indigenous peoples’ knowledge and facilitate access of smallholders to more participatory, targeted research and co-innovation benefit sharing. These avenues will be turned into investment opportunities through a Global Plan of Action that will be designed collectively by a Community of Practices emerging from the several thousands of stakeholders involved in the process and submitted to donors’ attention for their support. 

Side event agenda:

CET

18:00 - 18:15 : Introduction and presention of the Global Manifesto on Forgotten Foods - H. Lingnau (GFAR), S. Azam Ali (CFF)

18:15 - 18:30: Innovative content of the Global Manifesto and related Plan of Action in the landscape of Agro-Biodiversity initiatives: C.Fadda (Alliance Bioversity Intl/CIAT)

18:30 - 19:30:  Actions foreseen by the Community of Practices set up in Africa, Near East, Asia Pacific: A.Abdelrahim (AARINENA); Y.Akinbamijo (FARA); R.Khetarpal (APAARI); I.Baguilat (AFA) 

19.30 - 19:40: Way forward - H.Lingnau (GFAR)

19:40 - 20:00: Q & A