Wageningen roundtable mar2014

Roundtable Meeting between Wageningen University Research and the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish

Wageningen, Zodiac Building Tuesday morning: Room A1017 - Tuesday afternoon: Rooms A1017, A1018. Wednesday morning: Room A1018 - Wednesday afternoon: Room A1017.

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Purpose: To identify priority areas and mechanisms for collaboration and develop action plans. Dates: 18-19 March 2014 Venue: Wageningen UR

Agenda Tuesday, March 18th Morning session: Plenary with key contacts from the relevant groups

• 09.00 Welcome, introductions, objectives and agenda
• 09.30 Overview of Wageningen UR and Livestock and Fish Research Program and their vision of a partnership + Q&A

See the presentation Livestock Fish by Tom Randolph See presentation Wageningen UR by Martin Scholten

• 10.15 Lessons learned from past cooperation Wageningen UR-CGIAR

Presentation of views from Wageningen UR researchers on the partnership with CGIAR - see the presentation by Anne vd. Bos Discussion

• 10.45 Coffee break
• 11.15 Getting a partnership program on the go

Possible modalities Areas of current and emergent expertise and needs CRP areas of interest (geographic and thematic) Best bets Action plan, tentative activities, leads etc. What to present to afternoon working groups

• 12.45 Lunch break
• 14.15: Briefing about the morning session
• 14.30: Subject area working groups (concurrently and possibly using a graph with the full value chain and aspects and matching the needs marketplace (last morning session) onto this...)

Value Chain Development and Sustainable Interventions Human Nutrition, Food Safety, Post Harvest and Food Technology (In parallel) Institutional group Wageningen UR/L&F

• 17.15: Close?

Wednesday, March 19th AGENDA TO BE DISCUSSED ON THE PREVIOUS EVENING

• 09.00-12.00: Morning session: Subject area working groups (concurrently)

Animal Production Systems and Environment Aquaculture Systems (including genetics)

• 12.00-13.00: Lunch break
• 13.00-15.00: Afternoon session: Subject area working groups (concurrently)

Animal health Gender and capacity development

• 15.00: Break
• 15:15: Presentation of group work, of institutional group work and wrap-up session in plenary
• 17.00: Close

Thursday, March 20th The L&F management group will be holding an internal meeting to finalize the proposal for the extension of the current CRP phase to 2015-2016. The evolving proposal will have been circulated with the Wageningen UR team for comment, and it might be appropriate to have someone participate in this finalization meeting. Other members of the L&F CRP not involved in the proposal meeting may be available to meet with Wageningen UR staff to follow up from the roundtable.

AOB.

• It is anticipated that the partner CGIAR centers will want to engage in exploring collaboration with Wageningen UR beyond the L&F CRP research agenda: we may need to build in opportunities for those interactions.

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Meeting notes

Introductions and presentations

See presentation of Wageningen UR by Martin Scholten Wageningen mission: To explore the potential of nature, to improve the quality of life, linking life sciences with social sciences The triple helix at work European leadership

• Eu H2020, strategic partnership
• Animal Task Force
• Efaro

International collaboration Responsible food security Global agenda for sustainable livestock

Always integration for impact Ambition for round table, is strategic partnerships

Points to consider

• Clear ToRs
• Governance model
• Endowed chair

Collaboration between CGIAR and Wageningen UR

See the presentation of Livestock Fish by Tom Randolph

Partnership lessons, do's and don'ts

See the presentation by Anne vd. Bos.

Q&A on Anne vd. Bos presentation:

• Q: Is there a difference between programmatic and ad hoc partnerships?
• A: Yes it's easier to anticipate in a strategic partnership...

Samoan Circle discussion about the partnership lessons These insights were based on Anne's presentation and on the discussion

DO's * Formulate a shared vision * Communicate success * Clear financial framework * Clear division (roles) of Wageningen UR departments from the outset * Local capacity development (e.g. on local value chain system), which has long term effects * Acronym list ;)

DON'TS * Lack of awareness of the partnership (agreement) * Too ambitious goals * Too many meetings * Lack of financial transparency and procedures * No shared ownership

OPPORTUNITIES * Be flexible * Be realistic and pragmatic * Equal footing * Learning to get stuff on the ground (quick wins!) * Efficient meetings for shared vision and objectives * PPPs based on global leadership (e.g. leading to convince private sector to join forces) * Develop competences and rewards/incentives for such partnerships * Developing pre-investment (poor smallholders) for a.o. corporate social responsibility programs

RISKS * Unbalanced cooperation * Heavy CGIAR reporting * Too ad hoc * Accountability for impact: Is Wageningen UR driven by impact or by impact factors? Possible Wageningen UR accountability measures: training of PhD students, number of contracts for research emerging out of work, self assessments and peer reviews * Time spent on meetings * Private sector's understanding of impact is different (our target group is out of market) It takes time!

(Additional notes from Suzanne Bertrand) Pitfalls

• Transaction costs are very high

Lessons learned

• Flexibility
• Pragmatism
• Formulate shared vision
• Clear financial framework
• Communicate success
• Equal footing collaboration

Identifying current and emergent needs from each side

Wageningen UR

• Research needs. International field experience
• Field presence implementation
• Complementarity smallholder-commercial
• Creating pro-poor impact to small holder level
• Strengthen global presence
• Different sites. Comparative study possibilities
• Local knowledge into scientific transfer
• Reality check. Education research
• Internship places
• Access to new donors through partnership
• Local research institutes and universities
• Field presence, network, experience
• New business model opportunities for Wageningen UR
• Transition towards 'semi-commercial value chains'

Livestock and Fish

All areas are expertise available for Wageningen UR

• Animal health (herd health)
• Vaccine development - therapeutics
• Innovation systems - process (transformation and scaling)
• Innovation systems - conceptual
• Capacity development for VC development (practical strategies)
• VC assessment and analysis, economics --> VC performance
• Impact assessment and M&E in value chains
• Business models (small and medium scale) --> best bets
• Trade-off analysis
• Greenhouse gasses (research)
• Environmental assessment
• Consumer behavior
• Breeding program schemes
• Smart breeding
• Genetics of adaptation (stresses, diseases, etc.)
• Phenotyping
• Bio informatics
• Bio economic modelling
• Multi-scale analysis
• Sectoral policy analysis
• Feed resource utilization
• Grassland improvement
• Gender & social change
• Food safety
• Food technology
• Human nutrition
• European partnership
• PPPs formation

The agreement at the end of the exercise was that the joint area of interest is the intensification of animal production (technology) and enabling innovation for value chain transformation through different approaches.

Working groups

Value chain development

Present: Acho Okike, An Notenbaert, Annemarieke van Lonkhorst, Annie De Veer, Arie van Duijn, Barbara Rischkowsky, Froukje Kruijssen, Hans Komen, Henk vd Mheen, John Benzie, Jos Bijman, Michael Peters.

Regional overlaps: 8 out of 9 VCs (not: Burkina Faso) + links with Humid Tropics, though often on different commodities

1. Priority challenges (in VC research): At different levels of analysis: farm – VC – institutional landscape

• A. How to measure the performance of and nature of change in a VC? In addition to identification of constraints; ex-ante + ex-post

Needs to be multi-dimensional (economic, equity, nutrition, sustainability, ...) + taking into account all players (e.g. upgrading = from 5 to 2 steps but 3 people loosing their jobs; e.g. willingness of paying compensation of loosers by those who gain?; organisation of small-holders à some miss out + others loose their business opportunity) èWe’re now working with IDOs; still struggling with it; missing the full framework; how to find the balance/trade-offs between different IDOs; ... èDifferent objectives in different VCs, context, partners, ... * o Also looking at the poor consumer perspective! * o We also need a forward looking perspective

• B. Different models of linking producers with the market (e.g. farmer producer organisations, cooperatives, ...). Acknowledging and assessing the diversity of models
• C. Suitable business models (for different actors incl. the individual farmer as an entrepreneur & in relation to technological ‘best-bets’ / also look at different combinations of actors not necessarily covering the whole VCs)

1. 1. Market intelligence
   2. Farm as an integrated system: balance different interventions, prioritisation, trade-offs, ...
   3. Sourcing of feed ingredients
   4. Testing and comparing e.g. bottom-up, intermediate, large commercial modalities (comparing country VCs and species across countries)
   5. Creating partnerships, innovation capacity,enabling policy environment and institutions for scaling out innovation (e.g. multi-stakeholder processes). Practically
      1. How do you pre-organise the actors?
      2. Assessing multi-stakeholder processes. Conceptually
      3. Assess competing claims

The focus throughout is !! transformational change !!

èShort-term priority: A & C èThe rest is mid-term (though all important to be tackled quite soon)

2. Research Questions (Check existing list in CRP VCD plan!):

A. Measuring performance (what needs to be measured and how?)

• Which benefits, which actors? Related to objectives!
• How to capture the full spectrum of benefits?
• How to set objectives for pro-poor VC development?
• Which are the suitable indicators related to these specific objectives + the context (VC, country, etc)?
• How to set targets and measure indicators, in an efficient way?
• What is the critical set of indicators?
• How to develop an integrated assessment measure? How to balance? How to deal with trade-offs?

èGeneric framework / trade-offs / critical set of measures to quantity performance

B. Suitable business models (for different actors)

• How do you assess and compare success of business models in a pragmatic way (~RTC)?
• Which elements do you need to take into account for selecting a business model? Which models work in which contexts + what needs to be done for making them work (~suitability)?
• What hinders or motivates adoption of certain business models?
• How to develop/set up business models?

C. Multi-stakeholder processes

• How to facilitate multi-stakeholder processes and make sure they promote equitable participation?
• Which stakeholder engagement processes are suitable for different VCs and contexts?
• How to describe the engagement processes?
• How to measure if processes are effective?

3. Modalities:

• Tag on to on-going activities
• Joint proposal development
• Tap into “gap filling resources” (from the CRP)
• Look for PhD-candidates
• Exchange of students

4. Action Planning A. Measuring Value Chain Performance:

• Check what is there in CDI and LEI

B. Suitable business models

• Develop CNs (proposals) on mehtods, approaches, frameworks to study and compare Vcs
• Explore options for :

Short-term funding Students

• Inventorise existing business experiences and knowledge around models and contexts
• Explore linkages with other priority areas (and other CRPs)

C. Multi-stakeholder processes

• Review HT framework and assess usability for L&F (Jo Cadilhon, Laurens Klerkx – April)
• PhD (Masters in first instance?) : historical analysis
• Connect with CG parade, CCSL, AAS
• Develop joint proposal (using the VCs as laboratories):

Concept note (CDI/KTI: Laurens, Anne Marike/Jo/Froukje – July) Screening of suitable calls Full proposal

5. Linkages/integration

• Environmental modeling and trade-offs
• Multi-stakeholder platforms feed into identification of priority issues and best-bets
• Build on L&F integrative approach/logic
• Face-to-face & Skype meetings
• Developing Research Questions; joint prioritisation; ...

Nutrition, food safety, post harvest and food technology

(Suzanne Bertrand, Tom Randolph, Martin Scholten, Inge Brouwer and others)

Tom: Description of LaF involvement in this area

• Aspirational goals

Animal source food quantity Food processing, example of ouganda pig slaughtering Fish tilapia size, small fish for the poor * Check on choices ( bones, culture, mother and children?) Cap dev for butcher, farm on food safety . Work in informal food chains. Protecting small market system , such as raw milk market, compared to pasteurised milk. Better animal meat from feeding these Martin Dutch have experience on food safety, and small fish ( Netherlands is producing small fish for the African human food. ) Maybe less food technology

Suzanne Urban zoo description

Gender lady Outreach?

Tom More in 4.3 Public health messaging Link the product system with the outreach ( rural home economics)

Outreach when no formal system, helped by mobile phone technology

Informal market, still very important and for the foreseeable future

(Example of pig in Vietnam, where people drink the raw blood, so slaughtering is less safe now with urbanization ) Discussion on under nutrition in the less poor, because money goes into male pocket, so women may still be undernourished. Example of milk in Kenya, evening milk, for women, children have decreased nutrition as they are taking care of by relative. Chronic malnutrition?

Major challenges

• Strategies of engagement in informal markets
• How to define research intervention
• Food system for pro poor perspective. Better targeted for the poor?
• Review of some livestock fragmented market, with meat heading to rich countries, offals and rest go to other groups.

Description of chicken production in Europe, with breast sold in Europe, and rest in ai a with interrupted cold chains. Contamination.

• Specific sub population targeting, children and women? How to do it?
• Livestock footprint
• Consumer needs trends?
• Balanced diet through local production, addressing nutrients gap?

Example of Mozambique and livestock being unused even the milk, as they belong to the man. Importance of looking at household, and asking questions about what they would buy if they had the money. Indication on what they like, not linked to nutrition.

• Trace chemicals in fish production, antibiotic, conversation ( formaline).

What from Wageningen side?

• Need a literature review? Expert review? To know where is the research now?
• Demand for animal protein increase, and meat will be produced. Regionally and locally? Poor countries will not be able to pay for commodities such as chicken. Dual use of animal, feeding proteins to animal to improve production. Yield gap still important, due to management, post harvest loss, diseases, . Example of small fish for pro poor client.
• Task force from Wageningen of 5-6 experts, in post harvest. As this is not an area of expertise for LaF
• Dairy processing and dairy farming
• Aquaculture for shrimp and shellfish, fishes
• No tradition in meat production
• Sociology of consumer and household level. Plus food and nutrition security as impacted by productions
• Introducing dairy in areas where it is not there, difficulty of taste?
• Improving formal market chains intropical condition is also important
• Influencing informal markets for being safer
• What tools/ technologies solutions to use?

Summary of this group (see pictures)

Livestock production systems and the environment

(Acho Okike, Alberto Giani, An Notenbaert, Barbara Rischkowsky, Bram Wouters, Henk vd Mheen, Michael Peters, Shirley Tarawali, Suzanne Bertrand, Tom Randolph, Wouter Hendriks)

Issues

• Economy of scale what are the best forms of organization, uptake of intensification, environmental assessment
• Water, focus in L&F work in higher potential areas but some areas more arid , water productivity issue feed production across areas, resource use efficiency, biomass converted to food
• Trade-offs, food-feed traits of crop residues (efficient uses), forages in specific niches, borders, smaller fields in Asia
• Animal genetics (heat stress, cultural preferences) to make use certain development in market, need to give attention to management at the same time
• Animal health
• Feed constraints in particular in dry season key constraint
• Need to define boundaries
• Objectives: 1) Productivity/Technology, mitigating risk, environment; 2) Marketing/commercialization
• Attention to environment; manure

Identified priorities:

1. Biomass production including environmental stress;
2. Efficient resources utilization including crop residues and by-products
3. Balancing rations
4. Lignin degradation at service/market level; degradation of rice straw as an example (fungi), need to be low quality to start enzyme system
5. Disease resistance and heat stress (mostly in Animal health area) – Animal Health and
6. Herd health Management
7. Stakeholder organization; Link with business models, link with e
8. Technology uptake including social issues labor and gender, knowledge, trajectory of change in research design (rural, urban, peri-urban), management; link VC development
9. Adapting to environmental stresses including animal welfare;
10. Mitigation of environmental impacts, trade-offs

Integration/coordination points

• System Monitoring/Trade-off/scenario development/value chain performance
• Maps coordination efforts
• NIFIC scholarship identify PhD driven by student, PhD topics, scan, Horizon 20/20 (EU) some still open, road map now, building consortium, November draft 2016
• Waste: cassava peels. waste
• Students with a strategic topic

Specifics on priorities 1. Biomass production including environmental stress

Research questions/research areas Sources: SLP, biomass/Ken Giller group, Barenbrug/Dow.

• How to improve stress adaptation including stress physiology, water, soil adaptation, enhance quality and biomass
• How to use land resources in more efficient ways/stratification (Nitrogen fixation, BNI, Endophytes activity and disease resistance)
• How to balance biomass production and use across farm and landscape

2. Efficient resources utilization including crop residues and by-products Background: Lignin degradation at service/market level; degradation of rice straw as an example (fungi) funding for implementation, need to be low quality, fungi need to suffer to start the enzyme system, cassava peels not yet done Balancing rations

Sources: CDI, FEAST, TECHFIT Research questions/areas

• What sustainable models are there to connect feed supply and demand?
• How to apply lignin degradation technology in smallholder context (link with business models)
• How do design efficient strategic/robust feeding systems/interventions making use of locally available resources

Actions:

1. Source fund. Use some university funding to bring technology to market and 2. test in places in Africa and Asia, bring technology to market. What improvement can be made in particular systems, pilot scale, Tanzania and India, wheat straw, rice straw Asia
2. Collaborative modelling exploration (Balance, Herd models)

3. Adapting to environmental stresses including animal welfare;

• How to improved animal breeds to better deal with heat stress
• Further exploration needed

4. Mitigation of environmental impacts, trade-offs Sources: Group Imke de Boer, Ken Giller, Pablo Tithonell, Life cycle analysis, Forage technologies (CIAT), Global research Alliance (CCAFS), GHG ILRI measurements, Water Twente

Research questions/areas ü How to adapt waste technology to smallholder farmers ü How to apply and target technology to mitigate GHG emissions (or mitigate environmental impact in general) and improve nutrient and water efficiency ü How to create incentives and co-benefits and policies and enabling environment (sticks and carrots) ü Trade-offs livelihoods and environment

Action suggestion (at least for the latter three points)

• Further refining joint vision,
• focal point from each institution to be confirmed,
• outline priority area to be finalized in workshop (with decisions)

Aquaculture

Participants:

Arie van Duijn, Arjo Rothuijs, Froukje Kruijssen, Hans Koomen, Jens Peter Dalsgaard, Johan Verreth, John Benzie, Peter van der Heijden, Tamo Bult.

IMARES has an interests to collaborate with WorldFish on other areas besides L&F as well (AAS, CCAFS). To explore some other time.

Priority challenges identified: Intensification and professionalization of sustainable small and medium scale aquaculture:

• Appropriate breeding programs
• Appropriate feed resources
• Appropriate production systems

Do we work on small and medium scale only or also include large scale? Wageningen UR works also on large scale, but L&F does not. This is where the programs could be complementary. We can measure impacts at small and medium scale, but for the work we can include large scale as well. Do you only work with people that have already started? How about those who are not yet involved in aquaculture? Not necessarily excluded.

Key areas: 1. Feed resources: sustainable sourcing of feed ingredients, feed formulation in relation to production system (level of intensity of the system), feed management on farm, feed quality assurance (regulations and enforcement)

2. Quality seed: supply of healthy non-inbred seed, sufficient reproduction of the fish, sustainable sourcing of quality seed, genetic management, genetic improvement (maybe). Genetic improvement has been on the forefront of what ILRI / WorldFish want to do as stocks have been experiencing negative selection thus are poor performers in terms of productivity because stocks have not been managed in the past. Imposing a structure of genetic management already helps to improve the stock. If you do start to improve then what are the traits that you would like to improve for? This cannot work just through government and has to be done through the market. Other issues: Introduction of (alien) species (also related to production systems),

3. Production systems: relation between productivity, management, inputs and sustainability. These should all be adapted to each other for a particular intensity of production and the specific market context, institutional setting, specific constraints. It is about the design. E.g. for urban areas one can use more intensive, more technical systems than in rural areas. Developing new management systems (innovations) for specific contexts. This also has to do with health: intensity of systems related to occurrence of disease.

4. Fish health: Needs to be about prevention. Research around when in the cycle are mortalities happening. What are the reasons for mortality? Water quality, disease (secondary), carrying capacity of rearing systems (this will depend on the system that you work on). Mortalities are currently happening and are an economic problem and a food security issue. It is a yield gap. Mortalities are much higher in aquaculture than in other livestock systems and this needs to be addressed.

5. Value chains (not discussed further)

6. Advise and extension, technical support (not further discussed)

Areas for collaboration

• Genetic improvement processes: getting improved quality seed into production systems so that we have improved but sustainable production. How do we have straightforward breeding designs for different systems. 15 year horizon: what are the traits that will be of interest? Growth, disease, robustness. The species grown in developing countries have not been developed as for salmonids and other (developed country species).
• How do animals cope with ingredients in the feed they are not able to cope with? In Africa the fish need to cope with low nutrient concentrated diets and the fish are not used to deal with that. So if you can promote this, you can really boost growth in the fish.
• INREF program: addressed this question. Strains for high and low input systems (multi-disciplinary research). Theory: If you select animals under extremely favorable conditions the fish will be more sensitive to non-ideal environments, but if you develop them in less favorable environments you create more robust fish that are better able to cope with more difficult environments. So you need to look at what makes most economic sense for the different contexts that you work in.
• Selection in tilapia: there is no evidence that food conversion ratio has improved in 20 generations of selection. The fish are improved for improved feed intake. The way that fish deal with feed however does not increase. There are no indicator traits like in pigs.
• African catfish and LCA in RAS systems: Improving growth rate by itself is economically useless if you do not also improve feed conversion ratio. Sooner or later you will reach the limits of what the system can handle in terms of nitrogen digestion, oxygen etc.

Feeds: more and more plant ingredients, soya from Brazil but you cannot always source ingredients from abroad so you will use local ingredients that are low in nutrients and high in fiber and the fish will need to cope with it. Presently there is too much mono-disciplinary work going on. So focus needs to be on more multi-disciplinary work.

Issue:

• Feed conversion efficiency is the “golden bullet” in breeding: how well is the animal able to cope with the feed ingredients you offer it?
• What is missing is an integrative approach.

Sustainable production efficiency within a given context. This will depend on the market and the resulting requirements (e.g., farm-level, fillets after processing etc.). Should not forget that the focus is on food for the poor.

Need to think about a generic approach that can be adapted to fit with any cases.

Need a multi-disciplinary approach to breeding programs: include the economic analysis of specific traits and trade-offs between traits (to do with production efficiency). Economic profitability: how much more money will be generated by improving efficiency by 1%. Then add in environmental issues. Bringing in the knowledge on production systems etc.

Wageningen UR has more knowledge on tilapia VCs (feeding systems), not so much on other species such as rohu, catla, carps etc. (have done work on production systems on other species). The approach can still be used for other species, potentially with other partners.

No need to have geographic focus as long as technologies can be applied in the L&F VCs.

Summary question: How to improve production efficiency through a multi-disciplinary approach

Roadmap:

• Analyze problem in more depth in a multi-disciplinary group and then define the “work-packages” (exploratory / identification study). What are the research questions? (study that involves number of researchers that come up with a detailed document over a period of about 1 year. What is required (methodology, approaches to do multi-disciplinary work).
• Try to get funding to do the above. 150.000-200.000 euro? Need somebody to drive the process, travel budget.
• Work complementary to INREF Seed money proposal (Johan Verreth / Roel Bosma).
• Concept note and proposal for funding for a 12 year collaborative program (approach donors pro-actively) and published output.

People needed for initial study:

• Breeders
• Feed resources -> Crop scientists
• Economists
• Production systems
• Those that know how to implement technology innovations in societies
• CDI - Private sector - Development partners

People to develop the initial proposal for the exploratory study: Hans Koomen, John Benzie, Arjo Rothuijs, Roel Bosma – develop a plan for the 1 year project (ppt) (Johan Verreth in cc). This is mainly discovery not delivery. It will be important to include delivery, for the program, but also to get funding. Need to ensure t hat right “delivery” partners are included.

Animal health

(Johan Bongers, Mart de Jong, Suzanne Bertrand)

Priority areas

• Surveillance
• Infection (wildlife / catt.?? / intern. vector path.)
• Vaccine / diagnostics
• Socio-economics of disease
• Breeding
• Delivery of services
• Zoonoses

Research questions

• Change in equilibrium Wildlife / culture system

First actions

1. Opportunities: INREF proposal on ECF, wildlife (AG/SB, MdeJ). Wildlife
2. Exchange of senior leader discussion (SB/IC - June)
3. Workshop on vaccine research Bio + Inf / Vectors / Registration / Breeding
4. Exchange on surveillance for socio economics (I.W. Framework BR / MdeJ)
5. April visit

Capacity development and gender

(Acho Okike, An Notenbaert, Arie van Duijn, Froukje Kruissen, Jens Peter Dalsgaard, Margreet Zwarteveen, Michael Peters).

L&F intro:

• 1. Gender - has been applied t to VC tools development so far. Still need to do work on intra-household allocation of food (we lack staff). Gender transformative approach (GTA) being applied under one output of the Gender Theme in L&F: addresses access and control over income.
• 2. The CGIAR Consortium is pushing for CRPs to address gender in more integrative way and allocating 10% of the resource envelope. We are struggling to meet the 10% goal and having difficulties recruiting/deploying staff, incl. in out the value chains.
• 3. Still unclear how to integrate gender into the technology development platforms (animal health, genetics, feeds).
• Wageningen UR intro (Gender Studies Group):
• 4. Gender transformation is a long-term goal. How to measure change short-term? Non-gender specialists claim/believe they can ‘teach’ gender. Now trying to see how we can harvest the in-house potential to help ‘professionalize’ (mainstream?) more. Wageningen UR fragmented with too few people working on gender and scattered so forming a network and welcome opportunity to team up with the CG.

Discussion:

• 5. CRP1.3 AAS is taking GTA very seriously with push from the top/leadership of the program.
• 6. Gender deliberately integrated into the L&F value chain development theme
• 7. Wageningen UR wants to work on masculinity as well as part of its gender approach
• 8. The CRP approach also clearly recognizes the importance of including men
• 9. Challenge: integration of gender into the work we do
• 10. How to measure success and progress in the work we do on gender? How to measure that we are on track?
• 11. Wageningen UR Gender Studies Group involvement in programs on individual basis. Being approached by Professors to provide inputs. Pairing of gender specialists with Professors over 4-5 years as part of the gender cap dev approach focusing on PhD students
• 12. LEI also has a number of people working on gender from time to time. Often depends on donor requirements. No dedicated gender person in LEI (as far as aware)
• 13. Easy entry points are areas where women are working, e.g. traders, retailers, or new areas of work e.g. ICT
• 14. Should adopt whole household/farm-based analysis approach
• 15. L&F working to adopt the GTA in its fish value chain work in Egypt and Bangladesh. WorldFish more focused on GTA than ILRI
• 16. How do we develop in-house critical mass on gender before we attempt to mainstream?
• 17. Many female activists who think they are gender specialists
• 18. PRIORITY CHALLENGES:

a. Capacity development (whose?); mainstreaming within our organizations. How to maintain and integrate gender expertise? How to organize it? Lack new, young (upcoming) experts. Difficult to find and recruit new talent b. Hot to make progress in transformation, with men c. Linking academic approaches with what is practical on the ground d. How to measure progress towards transformation e. Approaches for quicker wins (for women) – e.g. in traditional or new emerging areas f. Household system analysis (from system to household and intra-household)

• 19. Modality: as a first step hold a gender conference (“Gender in Agriculture”) with open call for papers to get a feel of who is around and doing what = a potential initiative? Focus on L&F or broader? Provide a platform for young researchers to present. May not help mainstream gender but would raise awareness. ~125 participants. (Margaret, Kathy, Alessandra as organizers?). How to bring in the skeptics?
• 20. Modality: workshops; e-learning to link up people working is isolated positions
• 21. Research questions?
• 22. Review research questions from other groups with a gender lens?
• 23. Integrate gender in all ex-ante and ex-post evaluations
• 24. General problem in understanding how to operationalize gender. Develop simple learning tools to guide people? Hold brief training sessions?
• 25. Gender transformation from within, from within our institutions
• 26. Start with gender toolkits?
• 27. Link with other CRPs, e.g. AAS, that are prioritizing GTA
• 28. The 10% figure is not helpful at all; makes us massage figures to reach ’targets’ rather than seeing the real value in gender mainstreaming
• 29. What are the consequences for men and women of what the other groups are discussing
• 30. Research question: what are/are not the objectives in value chains of men and women … [observation: we are struggling to define research questions]
• 31. We still have basic groundwork to do to promote the understanding of and appreciation of value added by gender research
• 32. Endowed chair must be open-minded to gender studies (endowed is an outsider from a partner organization).
• 33. ‘Gender’ includes age, religion, class …?
• 34. Ex-ante tools must be multi-dimensional with trade-off analysis incl. gender, environment and other dimensions etc.
• 35. Research question: How to achieve/effect gender transformation? – needs to addressed more, e.g. what are suitable and more equitable business models for women? Includes improved participation and control over income
• 36. Improved feed supply reduces burden (labor time) on women and youth
• 37. We often forget to ask the question of how to engage men and look at/research transformation for women and men (for a win-win)
• 38. Conclusion: look at women and men in gender transformation research. And how to differentiate across age, class, etc.
• 39. Research question: how do we characterize, acknowledge and influence social hierarchies?
• 40. Modality: e-learning around curriculum development especially in gender in agriculture
• 41. Modality: internships on gender issues in value chains
• 42. KIT has a strong gender department
• 43. Wageningen UR has a strong alumni and active alumni network
• 44. Modality: visiting fellowships, sabbaticals, visiting scholarships (3-6-12 months)

Synthesis session

The results (only highlights) of each working group were presented, then Tom Randolph, Henk vd Mheen and Martin Scholten introduced the roadmap to put this partnership on its rails. The notes from below are tentative...

A vision of what the partnership would look like in 3-years time would include:

• Wageningen UR recognized as a full CRP partner through a Program [SAT1] Partner Agreement (same as is used to link the partner CGIAR centers). This would also include Wageningen UR participation in the CRP management and governance, which could be a continuation of the current Wageningen UR representation on the CRP’s Science & Partnership Advisory Committee, or membership on the CRP Planning & Management Committee.
• A joint research [SAT2] agenda established with a patchwork of different types of collaborative activities on-going around 3-4 focus topics that contribute directly to the CRP priorities. Additional areas for collaboration being explored.
• Joint project activities funded and being implemented. Wageningen UR and the CRP will have been successful in mobilizing resources for major projects, with possible private-sector involvement.
• Several bridging mechanisms established, including a coordinator leading the program within Wageningen UR, joint appointments [SAT3] for researchers, and joint supervision of students.

Steps to get there:

1. Confirming institutional expectations and commitments by [SAT4] September 2014 Wageningen UR to consult internally at top management level to: i. Agree on the objective of the partnership from the Wageningen UR perspective ii. Give the program with Wageningen UR an identity (name, statement of purpose) iii. Define expectations in terms of roles, contributions, resources, both tangible and intangible outputs iv. Describe organizational arrangements internally to support the program (coordinator, reporting lines) v. Describe how performance will be monitored and measured vi. Identify types of modalities to consider for supporting the joint program; incentives that would stimulate Wageningen UR staff and program participation Livestock & Fish CRP to consult internally: i. Within ILRI management and the CRP Planning & Management Committee, to agree objectives and expectations, modalities ii. Confirm proposed investments Begin preparing draft agreement

2. Identify priority research areas to focus our efforts as proof-of-concept for what the joint program can achieve, by September 2014 (does not need to wait for institutional agreements to be in place)

• Select based on roundtable consultation discussions and follow-up
• Establish joint task forces on priority research areas
• Articulate objectives and potential roles, activities

3. Give attention to bridging mechanisms, by March 2015 [MHvd5] (some may require institutional agreement to be in place)

• Establish part-time coordinator within Wageningen UR
• Establish joint task forces on priority research areas (as above)
• Pursue joint appointments, student projects (e.g. INREF proposal), post docs

4. Initiate joint resource mobilization over coming year (does not require institutional agreement to be in place)

• Wageningen UR internal resources, e.g. INREF proposals
• Identify opportunities for Wageningen UR to lead (e.g. NUFFIC?, WOTRO, Horizon 2020)
• Identify opportunities for the CGIAR centers and CRP to lead (BMGF, Horizon 2020, etc.)

Initial commitments [SAT6] made by: CRP:

• Consideration of full partnership arrangement
• Funding support to a part-time coordinator position within Wageningen UR
• 2-3 joint post-doc positions [MHvd7] or PhD fellowships to implement agreed priority research
• Strategic support for developing the priority research areas (travel, staff time)

Wageningen UR:

• Will take partnership proposal to the Wageningen UR Board of Directors, including governance arrangements
• Will appoint a person within Wageningen UR to coordinate the program
• Support to re-allocate resources within Wageningen UR by providing support to mechanisms such as INREF proposals, and to mobilizing new external resources, including facilitating links with private sector partners
• Proposal for an endowed CGIAR chair

It may be appropriate to have some words that place this particular joint programme within the context of the broader relationships with ILRI and other centres and the CGIAR as a whole.

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[SAT1]Signed with ILRI as the lead centre for the CRP. As we mentioned, we anticipate by the time the 3 year period is over there will be greater clarity about the Consortium-Wageningen UR relationship which may also inform this in the end [SAT2]Not just a patchwork – but a patchwork around a key focus – which we had the ‘words’ to define but did not put them together into a comprehensive statement…. [SAT3]We also mentioned secondments and sabbaticals as well as the endowed chair [SAT4]Some of these points may be more like conversations that are concluded by then – including with ILRI/L&F? [MHvd5]May 2014? [SAT6]Tom we mentioned as well some points along the way that will inform adjustments to the plans, and if need be provide stop-go points? [MHvd7]At least one for each priority research area