50x2030 Participation at ICAE 2024 Highlights Progress and Innovation in Agricultural Data
In early August, the 50x2030 Initiative attended and participated in the 2024 International Conference of Agricultural Economists (ICAE), held in New Delhi, India, which drew more than 1,000 attendees from more than 70 countries. 50x2030 took advantage of this exceptional convening of agricultural economists, researchers and other data users by organizing two sessions to share the efforts and impacts of the Initiative:
The 50x2030 Initiative: Improving Food Security and Rural Livelihoods with Innovative Data Approaches
The session highlighted stories of success as well as learnings of the 50x2030 Initiative that can be translated to country contexts. By informing the audience of best practices on methods, data production and data use adopted by the Initiative, the session aimed to chip away at the existing gap between research and practice.
Following presentations about the Data Production (David Laborde, FAO), Methods & Tools (Sydney Gourlay, World Bank) and Data Use (Sara Savastano, IFAD) activities of the Initiative, an esteemed panel made up of Maximo Torero (Chief Economist, FAO), Jyotsna Puri (Associate Vice President, IFAD) and Srivalli Krishnan (Senior Program Officer, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), took the stage. The conversation, chaired by Sara Savastano of IFAD, underlined the critical role of data use and the importance of ensuring that data is used not only by researchers but also by policymakers, and the power of innovation to improve the efficiency, quality, and timeliness of agricultural survey data, thereby enhancing its value for evidence-based policy development.
Click here for more information on this session.
Taking on Tech – Integrating Innovation into Household Surveys for High-Resolution Agricultural Data at Scale
The importance of high quality agricultural and household survey data was a recurring theme at this year’s ICAE, with several presentations focused on measurement issues in survey data and their implications for research and policy. The 50x2030 team was no exception, with a session organized to highlight some of the work that the Methods & Tools Component of the Initiative is undertaking with the aim of improving the quality, relevance and value of agricultural survey data.
The session included presentations of ongoing methodological work testing and validating innovative approaches to modernizing agricultural data production and analysis. The session illustrated the potential of household survey data to extend beyond its traditional uses and form the foundation of enhanced and expanded agricultural and food system policies.
Presenters Sydney Gourlay (World Bank), Adriana Paolantonio (World Bank) and Shruti Jain (World Bank, University of Oxford) spoke on the various ways in which we can potentially use household survey data, integrated with objective measurements of key agricultural variables, to expand the scope of data collected, improve the quality of data collected and add value through integration with other data sources. From the use of household survey data to ground truth and calibrate geospatial data products, thereby enabling higher resolution, more frequent and/or wider geographic coverage of the data essential for monitoring agricultural production and food security, to the use of sensor-based tools for measuring soil health and weather metrics at the local level, presentations spurred discussion, led by Kibrom Abay (IFPRI), of the potential for the use of these innovations and the value of evolving technologies to meet the demands of policy-makers in an ever-changing world.
The work presented in the session was supported by the 50x2030 Initiative and the World Bank’s Agriculture and Food Practice Group. Click here for more information on this session.