IFA Podcasts

Open data offers exceptional innovation opportunities across almost every sector.

In this edition of the IFA Podcast, Ron Baruchi, President & CEO of Agmatix and Cameron Ludemann, Agronomic Data Scientist at Wageningen University & Research, spoke with IFA Chief Scientist Achim Dobermann talk about the importance of open access data sharing, specific to field data. The two speakers spoke of the data gap in the adoption of digital agriculture, bottlenecks to open access data, including interoperability and data connectedness issues, and shared examples of innovative open data platforms. 

Reduced fertilizer consumption in 2022 raises the risk of significantly lower crop yields in the next harvest. That means lower food production and ultimately more people at risk of hunger and starvation.

In this second part of our Securing food and nutrition in 2022 podcast, Ben Valk - Global Head of Food and Agri Partnerships for Rabobank - speaks with IFA CEO/Director General Alzbeta Klein about emergency measures to ensure resilience - including short-term finance for farmers and hotspot country interventions such as the Sustain Africa Initiative.

In part one of the podcast, featuring Dr. David Nabarro - the World Health Organization's Special Envoy on Covid-19 – Klein and Nabarro discussed the evolving nature of the food crisis and what is being done to bridge farmers’ access to fertilizers, seeds and nutrient use efficiency advice.

Global food systems are fragile and millions of people around the world are at risk of hunger, even starvation. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on incomes, supply chains and economic growth, plus the ongoing effects of climate change and the war in Ukraine have brought us to a point not seen since the 2008 food crisis. The most vulnerable countries are those facing balance of payments crises at the same time as their populations are struggling with rising costs and falling incomes. But efforts are underway to secure food and nutrition in 2022 and to build resilience. 

In this edition of the IFA Podcast, Dr. David Nabarro, the World Health Organization's Special Envoy on Covid-19  spoke with IFA CEO/Director General Alzbeta Klein about the evolving nature of the food crisis and what is being done to help – including, short- and medium-term measures to get fertilizers, seeds and nutrient use efficiency advice to farmers, especially smallholder farmers in poorer communities. 

Gabriel Eze, Co-founder & CFO, Rural Farmers Hub, Nigeria and Jamie Collinson, CTO, Innovative Solutions for Decision Agriculture (iSDA), UK, talked with IFA Chief Scientist Achim Dobermann about how digital advisory solutions can benefit smallholder farmers in Africa, particularly with regards to efficient use of nutrients and other agronomic advice. Hear more about the work and vision of Rural Farmers Hub and iSDA and how digital advisory solutions can scale up to reach millions of farmers.

Rural Farmers Hub, a private e-extension service provider helping farmer organizations and extension agents support smallholder farmers with better farming decisions via satellite remote sensing or in-person. Gabriel Eze helps build new ventures and projects around AI in the education, SME, health, agriculture and security sectors, especially for disadvantaged communities. An advocate for ethical use cases of AI in Africa with more than 10 years of experience in design, software development, and IT consulting, Gabriel is also the Founder/CEO of Touchabl Pictures, co-founder of MyPaymart (an online trust management platform/escrow and trade advisory) and a guest speaker at Hult International Business School.

Innovative Solutions for Decision Agriculture (ISDA), a mission-based company developing financially sustainable and commercially scalable solutions for smallholders in Africa. Jamie Collinson is a programmer, entrepreneur and lapsed mathematician who is passionate about building technology teams and using software to make things people want. Before joining iSDA, Jamie led a software consultancy focused on helping startups launch their first products, created a software-as-a-service product and took it to market. He also consulted with a wide range of organizations as a “virtual CTO,” managed IT and digital marketing for an international NGO and founded an e-commerce business. Jamie read the Mathematical Tripos at the University of Cambridge.

Some 3 billion people in the world experience 'hidden hunger.' They might have enough rice, wheat and pulses to eat, for example, but the food lacks the vitamins and micronutrient minerals such as zinc, iron, selenium and iodine needed for normal brain development and strong immune systems. How can we use fertilizers to improve the micronutrient content of food crops? Ismail Cakmak, Professor of Plant Nutrition, Sabanci University, Turkey, and Martin Broadley, Professor and Science Director, Rothamsted Research, UK, sat down with IFA Chief Scientist Achim Dobermann to discuss how fertilizers can improve the micronutrient content of food crops - biofortification - and help tackle hidden hunger.

Kim Nicholson, VP of Ag Technology and Innovation at The Mosaic Company and Mike Pereira, Chief Agronomist of Finistere Ventures, talked to IFA Chief Scientist Achim Dobermann about why innovation should become the key driver for the transformation of the crop nutrition industry. Find out about innovations in other sectors that will affect the fertilizer industry, opportunities for accelerating innovation, creating the right culture, and the challenge of scaling up farmer adoption.

Patrick Brown, Distinguished Professor of Plant Nutrition at the University of California-Davis and Katja Hora, Research Manager Specialty Plant Nutrition at SQM sat down with IFA Chief Scientist Achim Dobermann to explore the idea of a new, broader definition of plant nutrients. Find out how a new definition of what a plant nutrient is has the potential to revitalize innovation and discovery; and could align better with nutrients deemed essential for animal and human nutrition, to create a more holistic concept of nutrition. 

David Powlson, Lawes Agricultural Trust Fellow at Rothamsted Research and Joachim Lammel, VP of Sustainability and Strategic Research at Yara Farming Solutions talked to IFA Chief Scientist Achim Dobermann about soil health and carbon sequestration. Find out why interest in soil health is growing, how it can be measured, what can be done to improve it and the potential of soil to capture carbon from the atmosphere.

Michael McLaughlin, Professor at the University of Adelaide, Australia and Ramesh Raliya, General Manager and Head of R&D at IFFCO's Nano Biotechnology Research Centre, India sat down with IFA Chief Scientist Achim Dobermann to discuss the future of smarter fertilizers and developments in fertilizer technology, including discussing the potential and challenges for nano-technology in crop nutrition.