IAALD 2010: Highlights of innovative practices!

The recent food crises, persistent tensions on agricultural product markets and concerns about land appropriation in developing countries have put agriculture and rural development right at the heart of public policy.
In view of this, the XIIIth World Congress of the International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists (IAALD) is intended to allow participants to share their views on and debate the way in which scientific and technical information can contribute to tackling the issues surrounding agricultural and rural development, in other words how to feed a world with 9 billion inhabitants by 2050.

The job of information specialist has evolved in response to these significant changes and the challenge of sustainable development. Such activities need to be reviewed in the light of technical progress. They have to take account of the complexity of a globalized environment, by linking various levels of information, sorts of knowledge and types of players. Modern information specialists have to fit into a continuum: from scientific data to information, from information to knowledge and from knowledge to new skills. Rural development players in particular are on the lookout for extremely specialized information to enable them to put the latest research results into practice.

Exchanging and comparing

The organizers of IAALD 2010 see the congress as a forum for discussing new practices and comparing experiences between information professionals, scientists and representatives of the development sector and farmers' organizations.
They are expecting 250 participants of several nationalities, with a strong majority of Africans this year, given Montpellier's long tradition of exchanges with the continent.

"Participants will be tackling five generic topics relating to rural development, of relevance to CIRAD and Agropolis International ", as Marie-Christine Duchamp, documentation coordinator at CIRAD, points out:

• Innovative learning processes: this theme will be introduced by Dr Emilie Coudel, of the INRA/CIRAD/SUPAGRO Innovation Joint Research Unit. She will put into perspective a first assessment of the UNICAMPO rural university in Brazil in combining economic sciences, cognitive sciences, and information and communications sciences. The session will host papers on agriculture-related training and knowledge-transfer platforms (e-learning), on communities of learning or practices, and on international initiatives on the subject by the FAO, UNESCO, ICRA and other field players.
• Targeted information products and services: this theme will be introduced by the Director, CTA (Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation), Dr Hansjörg Neun or his representative. The CTA, an example of an equal-representation organization between the European Union (EU) and the ACP (Africa-Caribbean-Pacific) nations, has developed a broad array of agricultural information products and services currently benefitting a widely diverse range of players in the South. The CTA Director will comment on these permanent mechanisms for adjusting the supply and demand of information, and the experience that the CTA is drawing from it. The session will host papers on the topic and on new information products offered by different players or field operators.
• Communication and information exchange between players: this theme will be introduced by Dr Mark Holderness, Executive Secretary of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR). He will present GFAR’s experience with multi-actor platforms for agricultural research and will highlight the limitations and advantages of this type of mechanism for rural innovation. The session will be open to presentations on innovation and rural development, featuring in-field experiences such as the PROLINNOVA (Promoting Local Innovation) project, establishment of networks and funding methods for encouraging innovation.
  
• Integrated information systems: this theme will be introduced by Prof. Rosa Issolah, of the El Harrach INA in Algiers. Her presentation will cover the establishment of an agricultural-research observatory in Algeria that combines information of different types via a Web portal. The session will, more specifically, be devoted to the establishment of information portals in the agricultural domain in a wider sense, to systems with a regional focus such as SIDALC(Sistema de Información y Documentación Agropecuario de las Américas) or NATURA (Network of European Agricultural Universities and Scientific Complexes related with Agricultural Development) or to global systems as developed by the FAO, CAB-International, or the CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research). It is also worth noting the SIST project, in which CIRAD is a partner, and which in particular gives the African scientific community access to national and international scientific information sources.
  

• Information as public policy enabler:

  This theme will be introduced by Dr Pierre-Marie Bosc, a researcher with the Markets, Organizations, Institutions and Operators' Strategies Joint Research Unit (UMR MOISA). He will cover the establishment of a world agriculture observatory ( OAM). His presentation will show the necessity of having information of a particular type to be able to form appropriate public policy. This assessment fits into the logical framework of such evaluations at the global level, such as IAASTD (International Assessment on Agricultural Science and Technology for Development) or MEA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment). The session could host papers on initiatives of this type, which help form public policy at different levels, from the very local to the international.