There is still a lack of clear and common understanding among the sectors concerned with agriculture and rural development about what “foresight” is about and what can be expected from engaging and investing in foresight at various scales form local to global. Many different tools and methods can be used or combined when doing foresight and there is also need to clarify what can be expected from different approaches.

The problem being addressed is that of building collective actions at regional level in order to incorporate the outcomes of many foresight works (from global, regional, national and local) already conducted into regional strategic actions looking at longer term orientations. There is also a need to share these perspectives as regional initiatives are not independent from both national and global and therefore need to be articulated. Further, foresight related activities are more developed in some regions and sharing their experiences is useful for other regions.

The problem being addressed is how we can bring together the needed diversity – of stakeholders and approaches – and understand better a number of multidimensional and complex questions such as: How can we inform stakeholders on alternative future scenarios and debate the desirability, consequences, winners and losers of diverse scenarios? How to better combine quantitative analyses with qualitative arguments? To what extent and how global analysis help decision-makers, orienting research, innovation and policies?

Experiences with foresight works show that foresight can provide ways for stakeholders to influence research, innovation and policies related to agricultural development. However, the inclusion of the voices of stakeholders - particularly resource-poor farmers - in foresight has been so far limited. Is it a question of scale? Is it easier to include stakeholders when doing foresight at local or national level compared to foresight at regional/global level? Is it a question of cost?

The purpose of session F3.2 is to address the capacity development dimension related to the absence of several key sectors of the society in foresight works. Developing foresight capacity is at the same time an issue of individual capacity development and institutional capacity development. At individual level, some formal education systems provide possibilities to acquire academic skills and recognition in foresight. However, these are not numerous and are usually concentrated in developed or emerging countries.