FFAR’s Foster Our Future conference underlines need for innovations for smallholders

5 February 2019, Washington, DC - The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research held its all day event - Foster Our Future - in Washington, DC to discuss game-changing research technology and innovation, and highlight the importance of continued research investment in sustainable agriculture and food security. Vimlendra Sharan, Director of FAO North America, represented FAO at the event and spoke extensively on the importance of innovative technologies for unleashing the full potential of smallholder agriculture and the importance of understanding the country context in the application of new research findings. He emphasized that developed countries should not press others to accept decisions about science and technology made elsewhere, but rather encourage developing economies to build their own regulatory regimes and home-grown policy infrastructure to support decision making for their people. Amongst other high-level speakers, U.S. Secretary for Agriculture Sonny Perdue also shared his views on the topic.