Youth in Action: Better Production

In this episode, we speak with Aditya Korekallu Srinivasa from the WFF Young Scientists Group about Better Production, exploring how youth-led innovation, collaboration and policy can drive more sustainable and resilient agrifood systems.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hello and welcome to the World War Forum Podcast and our Youth in Action series where we explore how young people are contributing to the transformation of our systems. My name is Alexandra. I will be your host. In this series, in next four episodes, in each of them we will focus on one of FAO's four better better production, better nutrition, better environment, and a better life. A framework that guides global efforts for more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient agricultural systems. Throughout this series, we will highlight the work and perspectives of Roadboard Forum Young Scientist Group, a global network of early career researchers who bring forward the innovation of science-based solutions, helping bridge the gap between research, policy, and action. In today's episode, we will focus on better production, exploring how agriculture systems can become more efficient, sustainable, and innovative, while responding to challenges such as climate change, resource constraints, and global global demand. I'm very pleased to be joined today by Aditya, whose work represents the importance of growing and scientist play and driving innovation, strengthening collaboration, and translating knowledge into real product solutions. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

So, hello Aditya, thank you so much for joining us here. My pleasure. So we are really, really happy to have you here. And before we start, I would like to ask you if you can shortly introduce yourself, tell us a bit more about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Okay, my name is Aditya, and I work at Indian Council of Agriculture Research in the institute called National Institute for Agriculture Economics and Policy Research. So by training, I'm an agricultural economist and I work in the area of sustainability transition, particularly focusing on market-based instruments such as carbon credits, payment for ecosystem services, voluntary standards, and how we can use this to drive sustainability transition. So I'm also part of the Young Scientist group working in the area of better production.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

And how is it being part of the Young Scientists group?

SPEAKER_00 2:12

It has been a very rewarding experience so far, like working on the article, doing research on how youth can play an active role in sustainability transitions and also supporting with other activities such as transformative research challenge, and it has been a very rewarding experience, I should say that.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

I'm super happy to hear that. And talking about your article, so your article actually highlights youth as a key innovator in agriculture systems, right? So what kind of mindset or qualities make young people so well suited to drive this transformation?

SPEAKER_00 2:50

That's a very good question. And in this article, we highlight that youth brings with them fresh ideas, technical capabilities, and more importantly, contextual understanding, all of which are very important to address the problems that agri-food systems face. And we through our cases, we also found that youth are uniquely suited to combine these technical innovations that they have with social and institutional innovation and scale it up as an innovation bundle. Specifically, I want to highlight an entrepreneurial spirit of youth, which is also very crucial for agri-food system transformation. Specifically, when we say the problems that we that agri-food systems are facing, it can also be framed as entrepreneurial opportunities for the youth. So youth through their entrepreneurial skills and combining it with technological solutions, they can mobilize the communities with their efforts. So by doing this, they can address both ecological and socioeconomic dimensions of this transition.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

And talking about youth and youth-led projects, so can you tell us about your project or idea that really illustrates how innovation can improve productivity and sustainability at the same time?

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Yeah, in this paper we start with the premise that the problems that agri-food systems of the present time are facing in terms of climate change, resource degradation, resource overexploitation. All of these are so urgent and so alarming that any intervention we do in the agri-food system must have a sustainability as a main goal or at least as a co-benefit. So keeping that in mind, we identify many cases where youth or community is leading the innovation across four thematic areas like fisheries, agriculture methods, forestry, and clemen smart agriculture. And these interventions have the dual benefit or the dual goal of both enhancing the production and productivity at the farm level and also enabling a more sustainable practices being adopted. To highlight a specific but a more generic kind of a case is use of carbon credit in sustainable transition of small-scale fisheries. So many of the companies and many of the startups in this space are helping farmers to transition to more sustainable practices and helping farmers to actually monetize it through carbon credit. So it has the dual benefit that farmers and fishermen have the increase in productivity due to this better practices, but also they get the monetary incentive through selling those carbon credits which are generated. So similarly, we identify many cases such as like precision farming, sensor-based irrigation, youth-led afforestration, reforestration efforts, so all of which have achieved this dual goal of increasing the production, but also making the farming system or agri-food system more sustainable as a co-benefit.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

And I want to stop you here. You know, I want to ask you something. So how would you explain? So your research is based on better production, right? How would you explain to people who are maybe not that familiar with agri-food system? What would you, how would you, in simple words, say what is actually better production?

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Okay, so that's a great question again. So better production, what we mean here is in the agri-food systems that we have, how can we uh improve the production practices in terms of efficiency in the use of resources and also like make it more sustainable? So better production spans across different sectors, like we have agriculture, we have fisheries, we have forestry, we have other sectors, livestock in it. So, in all these aspects, how can we improve the uh production practices or technology so that we use resources more efficiently and we transition to methods or practices which are also sustainable and operate within the planetary boundaries?

SPEAKER_02 7:20

And also, I guess, uh empowering youth to take part of it.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

So, can you tell us uh about the importance of science, policy, youth collaboration, and what does that collaboration look like in practice?

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Um many times we hear the phrases that youth are the future, youth are the future leaders. I think that needs to change. Youth matter today, youth matter for the present, not just for the future, and youth need a seat on the table where the decisions are made. Uh, what we advocate in the paper is that youth should have a meaningful uh participation in the policy dialogues and empowered to influence the policy, not just have uh youth as a tokenistic thing. We just want to include youth, but youth should have a voice and that voice must be heard. And in practice, both at national and international policy dialogues, I feel you should have a space and they should be empowered to influence the policy. Maybe at the national or sub-national levels, we might have might we should develop a more structured system where youth can influence the policy. And what we propose is that we need to have a coalition of stakeholders, including youth, to co-design solutions for agri-food system transformation, not just take them as a one of the silent participants in this journey of transition of agri-food systems.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

Talking about, as you said, young people are not just the future. They are already innovating, educating, right? So they are already taking lead. Many young uh innovators actually face financial and uh structural barriers. So, what's one thing you think uh institutions could do right now to make it easier for them to succeed?

SPEAKER_00 9:15

You're absolutely correct in pointing out that there are financial and structural barriers such as like land tenure and all these problems, which prevent youth innovations from scaling. And what we observed in the paper is that many of the innovation fail to cross that stage of piloting or enter into what we call as innovation valley of death, because they fail to scale and create meaningful impact in the real world due to these uh barriers or constraints, whatever. One important point is that having an innovative idea or a product is necessary for the innovation to scale, but not sufficient in itself. So we also need the enabling environment in terms of participatory governance, in terms of policy support and other support infrastructure, which is very crucial in addition to the financial support. So I think at the institutional level, it would be great if if there are access to low-risk capital in terms of grants or other financial aid to young innovators, because if a young innovator wants to experiment with a very high risk, high reward innovation, then the traditional means of getting a finance would be very difficult or the cost of capital would be too high. So if the young can access long-term capital at a low cost and low risk, that will certainly help the youth to innovate more and play a more active role in the agri-food system transformation. And also, I feel many of the things that go with the innovation require some sort of assistance. Uh, young people need some guidance, and at the institutional level, at the national level, and also at the international level, having incubation centers to guide youth young innovators would also be uh very helpful.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

And maybe some advice for young innovators. What's the best way to get a guidance? Where do you go? You're a young innovator, and I feel that I need some guidance. I need I feel that I need some support. What do I do? Where do I go?

SPEAKER_00 11:31

I think it has to do with network. Yeah, and also there are many like um youth forums now. For example, World Food Forum is a great example, so many innovation labs, we have Young Scientist Group, you have policy boards and national chapters in most of the countries. So it's a great initiative. And uh, for example, going back to my country, we also have um many incubation centers specifically dedicated to uh agriculture and agribusiness. So I think such efforts can be replicated so so that more and more youth can have access to these uh incubators and guidance.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

Coming to our World Food Forum flagship event, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

Platform made by youth for youth.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Where you have opportunity to talk to your peers but also to professionals, to have uh intergenerational dialogues, and I think the real effort can be made only if uh people all ages come together and we actually have opportunity to network.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

And if you could look ahead 10 years, how do we imagine youth innovation reshaping food production globally?

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Um, to be honest, I'm very optimistic that if we create the enabling environment for the youth innovation to prosper in terms of say supportive and coherent policies at the national level, um, enabling institutions and participatory governance, couple it with access to long-term finance that we highlighted before, um, then these young innovations will definitely accelerate the transition of food systems towards a more healthy, equitable, and sustainable uh food systems that operate within the uh planetary boundaries. So uh in that show, I'm very optimistic.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

And I'm super happy to hear that. And Aditya, last question. Is there any advice or any message that would you would like to say to young innovators listening to this episode?

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Um I want to highlight that having a good scientific science science-based innovation or a product is important, but in itself that may not be sufficient. So you also need to think from end to end like who are the actual end users of the innovation or product that I'm working on, and whether the features of the product translate into the benefits for the end users, and then incorporate the elements of scaling right from the inception of the idea so that um you'll be able to scale, and only when you are able to scale, you'll be able to make the real-world uh impact. So, uh, my advice would be to think more about the innovation, the ultimate end user, and think about how do I scale this innovation so that more and more uh people benefit out of this uh innovation of the project.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Thank you.