Innovation Chain
2Blades’ dual-market model optimizes the delivery of plant science innovation in the framework of an Agricultural Innovation Chain.
The Agricultural Innovation Chain
Functionally, the Agricultural Innovation Chain has two parts. Like a supply or value chain, there is a linear sequence of steps from discovery to validation, product development, regulatory, marketing, and distribution. These steps are supported by an overall enabling environment that provides for adequate long-term investment, training of participants, jobs, seed systems, quality control, policy and access. The chain must be responsive to market need, thus demand must lead product development.
In developed countries, large seed companies have developed business units that consolidate several steps in the innovation chain, though new ideas may still flow in from upstream innovation organizations. In such countries, the seed industry benefits from a strong enabling environment.
Yet in low- and middle-income (LMIC) countries, participants in the linear part of the innovation chain are small, disconnected, and function inefficiently while laboring in an enabling environment that may completely lack certain elements. As a result, agricultural innovations are not reaching smallholder farmers at the scale needed to bolster food security and contribute to a healthier and more sustainable planet.
A weak Agricultural Innovation Chain in Sub-Saharan Africa has made access to high-quality seeds beyond reach for smallholder farmers. As a result, many are forced to use poor-performing, decades-old crop varieties susceptible to current and emerging threats like disease, insects, weeds and climate. In countries where improved seeds occur, quality seeds reach no more than 20-30% of growers.
The utility of the innovation chain framework is in mapping and ordering the spectrum of participants with distinct core competencies and resources. This schema can highlight complementarity and potential for partnerships, marrying depth and breadth for effective outcomes. It can reveal alignments of resources that can be put into action.
2Blades maps towards the upstream end of the Innovation Chain, bridging the concept-to-product gap between academia and industry. We also contribute to aspects of the enabling environment. For commercial agriculture, partnering with large seed companies is a simple way to get our resilience traits into an effective pipeline and achieve impact over a large area. The Innovation Chain has also helped us chart a clear path for building partnerships by mapping the landscape of organizations dedicated to advancing smallholder outcomes.
Gaps Revealed by the Innovation Chain Framework
Developing a common framework also exposes where gaps exist. One gap that stands out is in funding: at the upstream end of the Innovation Chain, discovery research at land-grant institutions has a secured amount of federal support, albeit at marginal levels stagnant since the 1970s. Funding for translational research is disproportionately driven by the private sector, who can justify the high regulatory costs that put new products out of reach for all but the largest acreage, high-value crops.
Situated at the end of the spectrum are “last-mile’ resources, typically focused on training farmers with good agricultural practices.
The result is that the translation of promising breeding tools to benefit smallholder farmers, such as biotechnologies, machine-learning, and other technologies, falls into a “funding valley of death.” There is a need to add practitioners and funders that bridge the missing middle of the innovation chain, advancing product-oriented translational research for smallholder crops.
An Opportunity for Better Performance
Though overall levels of investment in agriculture are low, the missing middle is an especially overlooked yet catalytic step. Translational research reduces product development risk and creates private sector efficiencies for public benefit. The creation of a funding model principally focused on increasing access to the latest agricultural innovations and technologies would establish a holistic innovation chain for smallholder farmers that rivals that enjoyed by commercial seed companies.
2Blades was established in 2004 to help advance this objective. Over the past 20 years, 2Blades has built a novel model that merges cutting-edge scientific discovery with practical field application. Moreover, 2Blades has cultivated tri-sector non-profit, for-profit, and government relationships to leverage resources for a more resilient, sustainable, and productive global food supply. By fostering partnerships throughout the Innovation Chain, 2Blades has created access to innovation through tiered licensing of traits and technologies, and synergies that benefit both large-scale and smallholder agriculture.
2Blades’ model for delivering high-quality seeds against major crop diseases can become a key component to existing agricultural aid funding, equipping smallholder farmers with access to cutting-edge innovations that are essential for achieving food security in Sub-Saharan Africa.