IRRI at the Africa Food Systems Forum 2026 🌍

Duration: 4:50 632 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

The Africa Food Systems Forum 2026 in Kigali, Rwanda, serves as a critical gathering point for diverse stakeholders across the agricultural sector, ranging from policymakers and financiers to researchers and smallholder farmers. This event provides an essential platform for collaboration rather than duplication, allowing participants to leverage existing efforts and address the rapidly changing external landscape. The atmosphere is characterized by a vibrant ecosystem-like approach where scientists, private sector entities, and entrepreneurs connect to share innovations such as improved nutritional crop varieties and structured markets like school feeding programs. These interactions are particularly timely given the increasing perturbations in farming systems caused by climate change and other global challenges. IRRI plays a significant role at this forum, especially considering rice is the fastest-growing staple crop in the region. The organization emphasizes that future food production must go beyond simply increasing calorie counts to delivering nutritious food that supports human health while remaining environmentally sustainable. IRRI's recent strategy focuses on producing the same amount of food with fewer inputs and building resilience against climatic volatility and an aging farming population. This approach aims to drive productive incomes for farmers in an inclusive manner, ensuring that small businesses and key stakeholders are not left behind as the sector evolves. A central theme emerging from the discussions is the necessity of inclusivity, which acts as the backbone of a thriving food system. The forum highlights the importance of supporting smallholder farmers and local enterprises to ensure they can thrive amidst these changes. By focusing on these foundational elements, the agricultural community can better address the needs of growing populations in a climate that is shifting rapidly. This inclusive focus ensures that the benefits of innovation reach those who are most vulnerable and essential to the food supply chain. Ultimately, the overarching message from the forum is defined by resilience. As global populations grow and weather patterns become more unpredictable, the ability to adapt becomes paramount for food security. The consensus among attendees is that the future of agriculture depends on creating systems that can withstand shocks while maintaining nutritional quality and environmental integrity. By working together to solve these complex problems, the participants hope to move the needle on sustainability, ensuring a stable and healthy food future for Africa and the world.

Read the full video transcript

Hi, I am Erin from Erie, and we are here at the Africa Food Systems Forum 2026 in Kigali, Rwanda. >> [music] [music] >> The AFSF 2026 is a really important venue for us. Uh it's an opportunity to meet people from all walks of life in the agricultural sector, from policy makers and politicians to uh people who involved in finance in the food system, people involved in research, and farmers, and entrepreneurs who are connecting innovation to uh to the field. So, that that's a great venue for us to be engaged in. >> So, it's always important to be at AFSF, but especially uh for 2026, you know, the the landscape the external landscape is changing. It was always a need to collaborate and coordinate and synergize, but it's especially important in this current situation. So, that's why it's important to be here and connect and hear what everybody's doing and and leverage rather than duplicate. >> [music] >> I think it's just really nice to see the vibrancy of people starting to work together in much more ecosystem-like patterns. >> There's some new elements and clearly the the focus on investments has come out, which is an a refreshing new dimension, and especially financing for for farmers and smallholder farmers. So, it's really targeted correctly. >> I think it's wonderful to see the scientists talk about finance actually for the food system and not simply for research itself, and opportunities for >> [music] >> those in the private sector to understand what are the innovations coming through the research system, things like improved nutritional varieties, things like high-protein varieties, [music] structured markets like school feeding, opportunities to essentially deliver climate resilience. Those things are increasingly important in the world. We're starting to see a lot of perturbations to the farming system. And so, it's wonderful to have the opportunity to see people working together to solve those problems. >> [music] >> IRRI has a big role to play, especially with rice being, you know, the fastest growing staple crop in the in the region. And we have so much to contribute in terms of a sustainable system, the connection to climate, the land, the environmental sustainability. And [snorts] it's important that Africa really focus on that as productivity increases and production. >> Last year, IRRI produced a new strategy. I think what we think we can deliver and what is really necessary in this world is not simply more calories and more food, but food that's really nutritious and drives human health outcomes, and food that is resilient to the climate, but also environmentally sustainable. So, that we are trying to produce the same amount with many less inputs, and also drive resilience in our very volatile farming systems, which are experiencing a lot of challenges, both climatic and indeed related to aging farmers, relating to new technologies. And so, this is a great opportunity to ensure that IRRI can actually move the needle on all of those things simultaneously. So, my tagline is sum of the parts. Both nutritional value, environmental resilience, and indeed the opportunity to drive productive incomes for farmers in an inclusive way. >> Inclusivity. And that goes really for the the farmers who are the key, the small businesses that are trying to thrive. Unless we tackle that, that's really the backbone and the the most important thing and to have that inclusive and focus on on those stakeholders. So that's really the main main focus. >> So one word, I think it has to be resilience. I think we're seeing growing populations. We have to produce more food. It has to be more nutritious in a climate that's changing really rapidly. So resilient would be the word I would like to use.