HarvestChoice
MOTIVATION
Where do poor people live? How do they live? On what farming systems do the poor depend most? And what is constraining the productivity of those systems? To answer these questions and many others, HarvestChoice generates maps, datasets, economic models, and other knowledge products. By providing data specific not only to a continent or country but to a region, a subregion, or even a few villages, HarvestChoice helps guide strategic investments to improve the well-being of poor people in Africa south of Sahara through more productive and profitable farming. The data lead to a better understanding of the unique farming systems and farm households across a region with extremely diverse conditions that demand varying poverty-reduction approaches. HarvestChoice tailors data and provides insights to specific policymakers, such as the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA), and donors such as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). The public is also encouraged to use the data and tools, which are available on the HarvestChoice website, in new and innovative ways.
OUTCOMES
With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Australia, USAID's Feed the Future, and other supporters, HarvestChoice has produced several outcomes:
- HarvestChoice designed the Dynamic Research Evaluation for Managers (DREAM) impact assessment software to calculate the benefits of agricultural research and development activities. ACIAR has trained more than 200 people in Australia and Asia to use the DREAM software. The DREAM model is available on the IFPRI website free of charge.
- Partnering with the government of Queensland’s Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, IFPRI analyzed the work of ACIAR’s Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project. SIMLESA aimed to enhance production and determine which agricultural sites could be expanded to achieve the most production and poverty-reduction benefits.
- HarvestChoice researchers participated in the development of a science-based rationale for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to launch an agricultural development program. In 2010, the HarvestChoice team provided data and analytical inputs to support the Gates Foundation’s Agricultural Development Program Strategy Review and subsequently supported the Foundation staff in preparing the revised Agricultural Development Strategy in early 2011.
- The US government, through Feed the Future, has analyzed HarvestChoice data to identify how different interventions would work in three focal regions for sustainable intensification investment: the Sudano-Sahelian (Guinea Savannah) zone of northern Ghana and Mali, the Ethiopian highlands, and the maize-based systems of eastern and southern Africa.
