Producing more with less: CGIAR’s Ismahane Elouafi on climate and food security

In a world of diminishing resources and escalating climate challenges, we need to learn how to produce more with less. That was a key message from CGIAR’s Executive Managing Director, Dr. Ismahane Elouafi on a recent episode of the Devpolicy Talks podcast. As climate change disrupts traditional farming systems and depletes natural resources, the future of global food security hinges on this simple yet challenging idea. For Elouafi, the mission is clear: adapt agriculture to the realities of a warming planet while ensuring sustainable practices.

Elouafi emphasized the urgent need for climate-resilient crops, sustainable farming, and smarter funding strategies to tackle the twin crises of climate change and food insecurity. Since her appointment as Executive Managing Director of CGIAR in December 2023, Elouafi has focused on transforming how we approach agriculture, especially in low-income countries.

Elouafi explained how climate change is a major challenge facing the agricultural sector. “Most of our maize in Africa will not produce if we are at plus two degrees Celsius,” she warned, stressing that without rapid adaptation, food production in many regions could collapse. She highlighted that while CGIAR has made strides in developing heat- and drought-tolerant crops, the pace of innovation needs to accelerate.

Agricultural systems, especially in low-income nations, are still heavily dependent on expanding farmland and using more natural resources to increase yields. This approach, Elouafi argued, is unsustainable. Instead, agriculture must shift towards methods that enhance productivity while conserving land, water, and other critical inputs.

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A New Era of Sustainable Farming

Elouafi’s vision for the future of farming is centered on sustainability. While high-income countries have successfully integrated advanced technologies to produce more with less, many low-income nations still rely on outdated methods that deplete resources. “The solution today has to develop much more radically and much more quickly to make sure we are adapting properly to climate change,” she said.

One of the key strategies she advocates is co-creation—bringing farmers, researchers, and local communities together to develop solutions that are context-specific and scalable. By working directly with those affected by climate challenges, CGIAR aims to create innovations that are not only scientifically sound but also practically adoptable.

Funding Innovation for the Future

Beyond scientific breakthroughs, Elouafi touched on another critical issue: funding. Despite the increasing demands placed on agricultural research, CGIAR’s funding has remained stagnant for the past decade at around $930 million. Elouafi highlighted that many donors earmark their contributions for specific regions or projects, limiting CGIAR’s ability to respond to pressing needs in underfunded areas.

To overcome this, she emphasized the need for more diverse funding models and suggested that CGIAR should look to new sources, including NGOs, private sector partnerships and philanthropic contributions. She shared how diversifying the donor base would give CGIAR the ability to direct resources to regions and projects that might not attract traditional funding but are crucial to global food security.

The success of CGIAR partnerships like the Crawford Fund shows how funding and promoting agricultural research and development through training, knowledge sharing, and capacity building improves food security and sustainability in developing countries.

Toward a Sustainable Future

As Elouafi looks ahead, she is optimistic about the role technology and science can play in transforming agriculture. Advances in genomics, big data, and artificial intelligence offer exciting opportunities to improve crop resilience and boost yields with fewer resources. One example she shared was the discovery of 16 strains of rice with anti-cancer properties, made possible by recent technological advancements. “I think that the developments in many sciences in the last 10 years will allow us to understand better the synergies and the interconnectedness between things,” she said.

In a world where the population is growing, but natural resources are declining, the need to “produce more with much less” is no longer just a goal—it’s a necessity. While leading CGIAR, Dr. Elouafi is focused on ensuring that agriculture evolves to meet this challenge head-on, making it resilient, sustainable, and capable of feeding the world for generations to come.