The CGIAR Initiative on Market Intelligence (MI) teamed up with global problem solvers to address pressing agricultural challenges and present key MI findings at the triennial International Conference of Agricultural Economists (ICAE), held on 2–7 August, 2024, in New Delhi, India. Highlights of MI’s participation include the introduction of the Global Market Intelligence Platform (GloMIP), an innovative platform designed for crowdsourcing, analyzing, and sharing market intelligence on agriculture.
Bringing together more than 1,000 delegates from 75 countries, the highly anticipated event featured sessions on topics critical in shaping agri-solutions around the globe. Matty Demont, CGIAR’s MI lead, chaired one of the headline symposiums on technological and institutional innovations, guiding discussions on enhancing the impact and equity of genetic innovation programs in the global South.
The symposium also featured agricultural experts Diego Naziri of the International Potato Center (CIP) and Carly Trachtman from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Both scientists presented their respective cases on how market intelligence guides impactful investments to address food security challenges in developing regions.
While Naziri zeroed in on the importance of demand-led breeding to ensure that breeding programs develop the right products, citing issues on low uptake and slow turnover of new varieties, evidence from Trachtman’s study surveying current breeding practices and institutional setups to scale the use of market intelligence validate the same recommendation: investing in interdisciplinary collaboration and platforms such as GloMIP not only improves market intelligence uptake in breeding programs but generally enhances equity in breeding decisions.
With agricultural economist Kofi Britwum as lead discussant, the presentations were followed by a panel discussion, unpacking conversations on topics ranging from ways GloMIP can be proactively used to support programs that address poverty and climate impacts on agriculture to opportunities for market intelligence to integrate social science and gender-inclusive approaches in improving breeding outcome and priorities.
“Avenues such as ICAE allow the team to present our framework and vision to the international community of agricultural economists,” said Demont when asked about the value of supporting global platforms for MI. “We not only get valuable feedback on our implementation, but it also opens doors for potential collaboration.”
Organized by the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE), the flagship event is among the largest conventions for leading agricultural economists and researchers worldwide. For more details, please visit the event website at https://icae2024.in .