Presentation "Supportive enabling environments for up-scaling climate smart food systems" was held during the Transformations Conference in Stockholm, 5 October 2015 by Wiebke Förch, Science Officer at CCAFS and researcher based at the International Livestock Research Institute.

1. Supportive enabling environments for
up-scaling climate smart food systems
Wiebke Förch, Olaf Westermann, Mark Howden,
Philip Thornton, Sonja Vermeulen, Ioannis Vasileiou
CCAFS, CSIRO, IIED
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Transformations, Stockholm, 5 October 2015

2. Context
• Climate change pushes societies towards new realities
• Even in a 2-degree world, stakes are high
• Smallholder farmers are likely to be most affected
• Need comprehensive solutions for society
– Climate smart agriculture (CSA): food security, adaptation, mitigation
– Not incremental but transformative change needed
• Current approaches to scaling agric. practices & technologies
– Agric. extension (supply led) / participatory approaches (demand led)
– Challenges: transaction costs of reaching large numbers, meeting
farmers’ priorities and political, institutional and economic barriers
• Technologies as levers for change – need conducive
institutional environments & partnerships across levels
– Scaling up needs to become more effective

3. Scale of change
Informationdensity
Spectrum of adaptation
• Different levels of
adaptation
• Density of
empirical
information
• R4D: generating
new knowledge
on practices &
technologies
- Mostly incremental
change
- Need to show impact

4. Scale of change
Informationdensity
Incremental
Systemic
Transformative
Radical?
Approach
• Transdisciplinary
case studies on
adaptation (28),
scaling up CSA (11)
• Simple analytical
framework: lessons
on processes,
capacities,
institutions to
facilitate scaling
• Hypothesis: lessons
in both studies
could apply to
transformative
change

5. Key learning
• Unavoidable trade-offs between reach and context ->
potentially high transaction costs
• Multi-stakeholder platforms and policy making networks are
key to effective scaling, if paired with capacity enhancement,
learning, support farmers’ decision making -> high investment
• Cross-level processes for transformation – higher leverage
points can be efficient
• Little robust information on economic efficiency and actual
impact

6. Key learning
• Interactions with different types of partner are key
• Looped learning is important (hindsight – insight – foresight)
• Formulate and address critical assumptions, which may
make or break the scaling-up process
• Bridge gaps between short- and long term
• Address root causes of vulnerability – institutional
environments matter most