Washington, D.C. – Today more than 300 members from the global agriculture research community gathered today to discuss and refine the research strategy for the Obama Administration's Feed the Future Initiative. U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah opened a three-day Feed the Future Research Forum.“Just as we are making concentrated investments in selected value chains and geographic regions, Feed the Future is also strategically focusing our research agenda to maximize impact,” Administrator Shah said, “The discussion and feedback from this three-day forum will help the United States further refine our research strategy on food security to deliver the most effect results.”

The Forum is organized by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) in coordination with USAID, the Board for International Food and Agriculture (BIFAD), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). “Research conducted at America's land-grant universities and others working together with federal agencies and global community played a significant role in meeting the food needs of the world's population during the last half of the 20th century,” said Peter McPherson, president of the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities (APLU) and former Administrator of USAID. “Working together again, the federal research agencies, researchers from around the globe, and faculty from the land-grants and the entire U.S. university community can find solutions to the production, nutrition and food security needs of the 21st century. The outcomes from the Research Forum are critical to defining both the work plan and the funding needs for this critical mission.”

The Forum seeks to identify and refine the three themes laid out in the initiative's research strategy: advancing the productivity frontier, transforming production systems, and enhancing nutrition and food safety. Forum organizers hope to explore opportunities for increasing the impacts of research through human and institutional capacity development, innovative partnerships, a whole of government approach, and engagement of the private sector. The Research Forum's outcomes will be presented in a published report by September 1, 2011.

Research community input into the research agenda started in January with a meeting of key stakeholders at Purdue University which set the context for future discussions and outlined the process for the broader stakeholder consultation. Global comment on the Feed the Future research agenda was collected in May via an e-consultation with more than 1,000 participants worldwide.

“The Feed the Future research forum is the next key step in answering the challenge President Obama has set before scientists working across government agencies and in the universities to increase food security,” said Catherine Woteki, Ph.D., U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Chief Scientist and Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics. “Leveraging such a wealth of scientific expertise strengthens our work and improves the chance that, one day, every country can feed its population in sustainable ways.”

The Research Forum is available via audio streaming at www.aplu.org and at www.Agrilinks.org.

Feed the Future

Through Feed the Future, the U.S. global hunger and food security initiative, the U.S. Government is helping countries transform their own agricultural sectors and regional trading systems to sustainably feed their people. For more information, please visit www.feedthefuture.gov and transition.usaid.gov/foodweek.