Reimagining Partnerships to Transform the Agri-food Innovation Chain
University of Minnesota alum and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug often implored agricultural scientists to look beyond their lab benches and “take it to the farmer.” As economies develop, farmers become embedded in ever-more complex and interconnected agri-food value chains (AVCs). A 21st century variant of Borlaug’s challenge is “take it to the farmer, and beyond!” Like the value chains being served, innovation in the agri-food sciences must now recognize the close connectivity between the pre-, on- and post-farm links within rapidly changing AVCs to sustainably improve their economic and environmental performance.
Notably, the private sector now plays a much larger and expanding role in research, development and innovation (RDI) for AVCs worldwide. While this opens new opportunities to spur innovation along AVCs, it also requires the public sector to rethink and reposition their R&D roles, cognizant of the potential for productive public-private innovation partnerships while also prioritizing the types of R&D for which the public sector has comparative advantages.
GEMS Informatics has teamed up with 2Blades to host a Deep Dive Session at the 2025 Borlaug Dialogue, convened by the World Food Prize Foundation in Des Moines Iowa, October 21-24.
This in-person session will be held on Wednesday, October 22 from 3:15 – 4:15pm at the Iowa Event Center in Des Moines. Entitled “Reimagining Partnerships to Transform the Agri-food Innovation Chain,” the session will explore how innovative public-private R&D partnerships can (and must) accelerate innovations that tackle, and help solve, the myriad challenges facing agri-food value chains now and in the decades ahead.
The session will cover the following topics:
- The changing global realities of agri-food R&D
- Lessons from successful public-private innovation partnerships
- Efficiency drivers across crops, regions, and stages of the innovation chain
- Pathways to equitable, sustainable, and resilient food systems
Speakers include leaders across global agriculture:
Diana Horvath, 2Blades
Phil Pardey, GEMS Informatics
Ian Puddephat, PepsiCo
Juan Lucas Restrepo, International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)
Ty Vaughn, Bayer
The event will be moderated by Appolinaire Djikeng, Director General of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).
Learn more about the World Food Prize event.
