HarvestPlus Solutions, which tackles global food and nutrition security, and CGIAR’s Portfolio Performance Unit (PPU), which builds and catalyzes CGIAR innovation management excellence, are collaborating in designing “innovation packages” that can transform technological products into transformative solutions, starting in Kenya. This effort joins HarvestPlus Solutions’ expertise in market-driven scaling of biofortified crops and CGIAR’s advanced Innovation Portfolio Management systems. It will work to increase access by small-scale food producers, starting in Kenya, to biofortified food crops that both reduce nutrient deficiencies in poor households and enhance their agricultural resilience against climate challenges. This new collaboration is part of CGIAR’s work to scale agricultural innovations across diverse regions, with HarvestPlus Solutions spearheading efforts in Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania in Africa and in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan in Asia.

HarvestPlus Solutions will pilot CGIAR’s Innovation Packages and Scaling Readiness (IPSR) methodology, developed in recent years with Wageningen University & Research, to ensure that its agricultural innovations are adapted effectively and scaled widely. Use of this systematic IPSR approach brings together technologies, practices, and policies into cohesive “innovation packages” that are tailored specifically for different contexts to enhance agricultural productivity and sustainability. Using IPSR’s “Scaling Readiness” tool, innovation groups can evaluate just how ready an innovation is for scaling by considering its technical viability, market potential, institutional support, and policy environment. By integrating technical, organizational, and socioeconomic innovations and by engaging the diverse “enabling” actors needed to scale a particular innovation package in a particular location and context, CGIAR’s IPSR process enables groups to address potential scaling bottlenecks up front and to devise practical scaling options with the greatest chance of success.

Compatibility

• HarvestPlus Solutions’ market-driven approach to scaling and technology bundles is highly compatible with CGIAR’s IPSR framework.
• Both approaches prioritize adapting innovations to local conditions and needs, ensuring they are not only sufficiently mature but also market-ready and culturally acceptable.
• IPSR’s emphasis on participatory processes and key stakeholder/community engagement complements HarvestPlus Solutions’ strategy of market-driven scaling, focusing on CGIAR-wide agricultural innovations beyond biofortified crops.
• This collaboration leverages both organizations’ strengths, using IPSR’s structured methodology to enhance the effectiveness and impact of HarvestPlus Solutions’ scaling efforts.

Integration and Synergy

• HarvestPlus Solutions will integrate CGIAR’s IPSR methodology into its scaling strategies to assess the readiness of its current technology bundles for specific targeted markets.
• This integration will help to identify precise needs of the end users of the technologies and to customize these technological solutions to suit different regions and contexts.

Central to the CGIAR-HarvestPlus Solutions’ collaboration is a commitment to employ “inclusive scaling” methods that help ensure that agricultural innovations reach and tangibly benefit marginalized and underserved communities in the global South. A related new project this year, a partnership between CGIAR and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to build more “responsible scaling” into CGIAR’s IPSR process, perfectly complements this effort to scale biofortified food crops in Kenya. By focusing on “responsible” as well as wide and deep scaling, this joint effort aims to create equitable opportunities within the food systems of developing countries—systems that reflect the shared mission of CGIAR and HarvestPlus Solutions to build a healthier and more nutritious, sustainable, and equitable world.

This new collaboration kicks off in Naivasha, Kenya, 15–16 May 2024, with a workshop whose participants will package biofortified crop innovations for Kenyan farmers and make initial plans for expanding the work and reach of this collaboration in the months to come.