Mark Stafford Smith, Peter Carberry, Mark Howden CSIRO National Research Flagships, Australia. 4 May 2010.

1. www.csiro.au
Decision Support that is useful to
national and regional users
Mark Stafford Smith, Peter Carberry, Mark Howden
CSIRO National Research Flagships, Australia
4th May 2010

2. www.csiro.au
Outline
• In praise of Food Systems for delivering food security
• Adapting to climate change
– Some key concepts in adaptation
• Decision support for decision making
– Process as much as content
• Challenges and opportunities:
Food Systems in the Earth System
• Link food systems, earth system science, scale issues, users
of decision support, and development

3. www.csiro.au
Main elements of food systems (GECAFS)
FOOD FOOD
UTILISATION ACCESS
• Nutritional Value • Affordability
• Social Value • Allocation
• Food Safety • Preference
FOOD
AVAILABILITY
• Production
• Distribution
• Exchange

4. www.csiro.au
Some benefits of a food systems approach
• Identifies interactions of global change with food system
– Focus on multiple vulnerabilities within the food system
– Highlights under-emphasised aspects of the food system such as
diverse food types and their sensitivity to climate change
– Analyses feedbacks to the earth system from the food system
(GHG, biodiversity, biogeochemical cycling, etc)
– Highlights embodied water and carbon in food
• Allows analysis of multiple food system outcomes
– food security
– ecosystem services
– social welfare
(GECAFS: Diana Liverman)
• “Cumulative changes, whole supply chains, transformative
solutions…” Achim Steiner

5. www.csiro.au
Four concepts in adaptation
• Linking across scales and users

6. 1. Different paradigms – but bring together
Mitigation Adaptation
Earth system
Policies (e.g. ETS) Development
Policies (e.g. drought)
Technologies (e.g. clean coal) Technologies (e.g. infrastructure)
science? science?
Behaviours (e.g. energy efficiency) Behaviours (e.g. water use)
Adaptive management (e.g. offsets) Adaptive capacity and
management (e.g. urban planning)
Participatory action research
Regional to local scale
Strong in social and economic

7. 2. Adaptation: multiple scales, purposes,
contexts
Trade policy Sectors &
trade
National policy
Industry
mix
Regional &
industry policy Livelihood
options
Agribusiness & Land use
mix
NRM extension
Alternative
management
Adoption &
practices
adaptation
Paddock Farm/park Region National Global
(Rohan Nelson)

8. 3. Linking the local to the national+
• Structured approach to extrapolation/scaling up
Generalisations & global statements
Typology of diverse systems
Based on x
clear model
of (different) Categories of regional GEC impacts
systems
functioning ⇓
Broadly predictable sets of responses
across scale
Complex sets of case studies without generalisability
Seeking necessary but sufficient complexity to inform decisions

9. www.csiro.au
4. Brazil IGBP/ESSP-IAV meeting
• São José dos Campos, Nov 2009, mostly funded by Brazil
• ~89 attendees, from 24 developing countries (+5 OECD)
• Emphasised the importance for developing countries of:
– Understanding the adaptation options arising from (and defining)
vulnerabilities
– Recognising adaptation to climate change may mean development
in a different direction (not just more ‘20thC’ development)
– Building the links between adaptation, mitigation, development
– Looking for real opportunities – e.g. leapfrogging technologies in
communications, power systems, management standards, etc
– Importance of genuine appraisal of local knowledge and its use
where appropriate
• (Report at: http://www.ess.inpe.br/iavbrazil/)

10. www.csiro.au
Four concepts in adaptation
• Linking across scales in space and process…
– Risk of work at one scale only, without methods to scale up/down
• …and in time
– Avoid maladaptive development through planning over time
• Lenses… Adaptation decision
making and choices
Evaluation, adaptation
pathways, risk modes, etc
Adaptation
outcomes
Adaptive capacity Adaptation options
and institutions and technologies
Behaviours, incentives, Cultivars, materials,
barriers, vulnerabilities, etc farming systems, etc

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Decision Support
• A process, more than a computer model
– GECAFS experience
• Who for?

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Who are the ‘stakeholders’?
• Ultimately: clearly (rural) people of developing countries
• Proximately, users of DS are mainly framed as:
– National decision-makers
– International decision-makers
• These are not only government decision-makers
– NGOs involved in supporting agriculture and livelihoods
– Food distribution system and businesses
– International trade, environment, market chain decision-makers
– Even those influencing food aspirations of next generation
– Global adaptation negotiators
• Policy is made in many places
– Interest in MDGs, not ag. production per se

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Decision support for policy
• Tends to emphasise methodology development over
delivery
– Churchman ’71 – “… tendency on designing inquiring systems is to bolster
science & its research as it is conceived today”
– Hammond ’96 – “our main efforts have been directed towards developing
better research methods for science … not been direct towards the needs
of policymakers”
– van Keulen ’07 – “The examples still largely bear an academic character”
– Rossing et al. ’07 – “focus on methodology development rather than
answering questions of specific clients”
(Peter Carberry)

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Decision support for policy
• Tends to emphasise methodology development over
delivery
• Tends not to be timely
– Hammond ’96 – “doubt over usefulness (of models) to policymakers
largely because of length of time between initiation & appearance of
results”
– Hengsdijk et al. ’98 – “Information comes too late and is not in line with
the proposed policy plans”
– Rossing et al. ’07 – “… often come up with solutions for problems of
yesterday due to the time needed to update data and rewrite models to
new questions”
(Peter Carberry)

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Decision support for policy
• Tends to emphasise methodology development over
delivery,
• Tends not to be timely,
• And hence tends to have limited impact
– Hengsdijk et al. ’98 – “The contribution of QSA tools to the policy process
is more difficult to assess, but seems less than glorious”
– Rossing et al. ’07 – “limited attention for model evaluation and impact
analysis”
– van Paassen et al ’07 – ”… but the exchange with stakeholders did not yet
lead to a critical learning system approach”
– van Keulen ’07 – “The probably biggest challenge is to transfer the
methodologies developed in land use studies to the unruly practice of land
use policy formation and implementation”
(Peter Carberry)

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Decision support for policy
• Tends to emphasise methodology development over
delivery,
– Tends not to be timely, and hence tends to have limited impact
• Despite all this:
– Sterk et al. 2009. The interface between land use systems research
and policy: Multiple arrangements and leverages. Land Use Policy
26: 434-442
– Reviewed success (etc) of 11 policy/science DSS in ag. production /
ecosystem services
– Identified 5 different modes of effecting policy-science linkages
– Related to primacy of science or policy, and convergent or
divergent preconceptions of the role of science and policy

17. www.csiro.au
Decision support for policy
• Tends to emphasise methodology development over
delivery,
– Tends not to be timely, and hence tends to have limited impact
• Despite all this: Sterk et al. 2009
– Identified 5 different modes of effecting policy-science linkages
• Critical point: need to know which mode(s) in operation
– And use identified leverage points
• reputation of research institute and/or scientists;
• raise and balance expectations;
• communicate and invest in the scientific basis of the modelling;
• participation in model development;
• heterogeneous and extensive social network in policy domain;
• institute mandate that secures availability of ‘stepping stones’.

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Summary - failings in Decision Support
• Being driven by science alone (i.e. no clear users)
• Targeting the wrong decision-makers as users, or the right
ones in the wrong way
• Failing to work across scales, given much source work in
local case studies
• Omitting to identify and use the modes of engagement
and leverage points

19. Yield Prophet® - a yield forecasting system
for Australian graingrowers
www.yieldprophet.com.au • Internet-based subscriber system to
predict current wheat yields using
APSIM
• Initiated by Birchip Cropping Group
(grower group) with CSIRO / APSRU
collaboration
• 2003 - 25 paddocks in one region
• 2004 - 68 paddocks nationally
• 2005 - 300 paddocks nationally
• 2006 - 500 paddocks nationally
• 2007 > 500 paddocks nationally
• 120 individual growers (and their
• Brad and Susan Martin with their son Will consultants)
logging onto the Yield Prophet web site. • 50 commercial consultants (and
their grower clients)
• 21 extension officers
• 6 grower research collectives
• 1 corporate client (ABB)

20. Yield Prophet® generates paddock-specific
reports for use by individual farmers…

21. …but Yield Prophet® data is now also used to
diagnose performance of wheat in Australia
Frontier Slope
= 22 kg grain/ha.mm Symbols:
Observed data from 334 Yield
Prophet commercial wheat
crops 2004-07
Dashed line:
Potential water use efficiency
- French & Schultz (1984)
- Sadras & Angus (2006)
Average Slope = 15.2 Solid line:
kg grain/ha.mm Average WUE
y=0.015x-1.019, r2 = 0.69
(Hochman et al., 2009)

22. Top-down assessment of adaptive capacity of
Natural Resource Management groups
Using the Sustainable Livelihoods 5 capitals to define the analysis
High
Moderate
Low
(Nelson et al., 2009)

23. Self-assessed adaptive capacity for 3 groups
Triggering collective action linking communities, governments and research
Western plains
Human
5
4
Top-down and bottom-up integrated (common concepts
Central slopes
3
& plains
applied with different users, in different2 modes and for
Financial Social
different types of action – but scaleable) – in one case
1
with a detailed model, in the other an analytical process plains
0 Western
Central slopes
& plains
Slopes & hills Slopes & hills
Physical Natural
(Brown et al., 2009)

24. www.csiro.au
Multi-scale approach
• High order, strategic
Regional diagnosis of opportunities
constraints and • Across geographies
• Targeting and stratification
opportunities Earth system
• Immediate investment
decisions plus regional
science
capability building
Validation
Targeting
Food system Potential for cross-scale
cross-scale
analyses
Development
linkages
science
• Particular technologies
• Particular contexts
• Technologies targeted to
Exploring and supporting
region, market, farm,
local interventions livelihood
• Solution-focused

25. www.csiro.au
Links to CCAFS?
CSIRO Research Flagships
Regional diagnosis of • Climate Adaptation
Theme 1: ‘Pathways’ & scenarios
constraints and Theme 3: Managing natural ecosystems
opportunities Theme 4: Primary Industries & communities
• Sustainable Agriculture
Theme 1: Greenhouse gas management and
carbon storage in land use systems
Validation
Targeting
Theme 2: Advancing agricultural productivity and
Cross-scale environmental health
analyses Theme 3: Landscape systems and trends
Theme 4: Partnering for international food and
fibre security, incl. Indigenous knowledge in Oz
Australia’s new food security initiative
Exploring and supporting
local interventions • Rebuilding the focus on Africa
• Rebuilding the focus on agricultural productivity
– CSIRO is providing underpinning science support

26. www.csiro.au
Key messages for decision support
• Clarify the users (vs. the stakeholders) of the work
– Engage them profoundly and understand their needs
– Recognise their timeframes and choose commitments wisely
• Be founded in good science in what happens locally
– Across the whole food system, not just production
• But frame at multiple scales from the start
– From local to national and global – needs a model and typology for
scaling up and down
• Avoid the failings of being method-driven and untimely
What are success stories from CGIAR/ESSP??

27. www.csiro.au
Conclusion, or vision?
• The most powerful outcome would be new and strong
links between earth system science and development
science, with food systems as a multi-scaled heuristic, and
decision support systems really supporting decisions!
Thank you - mark.staffordsmith@csiro.au - www.csiro.au/ca