Transdisciplinary research approaches for crop science research: theory, practice, and implications for research design

Abstract

Current challenges in agri-food systems, such as climate change, population growth, ecosystem degradation, and increasing demand for healthy and diverse diets, cut across geographical, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries. Successfully meeting these challenges will require research approaches that draw on a broad base of scientific and practical knowledge and expertise to develop and implement innovations in crop varieties, agronomy, markets and policies. Success needs to be measured in gains from multiple traits, including climate resilience (drought or heat tolerance), nutritional value, value to women farmers or the marginalized, and market traits valued by a range of consumers, as well as the necessary attention to productivity and income-generation (De Grandis & Efstathiou, 2016; FAO, 2023). The systematic exclusion of women and other minority voices may be partly explained by their limited representation in agri-food systems governance (Amoak et al., 2022), as well as programs bereft of research designs that embrace a plurality of views. This field has also been criticized for the lack of coherence when it comes to defining problems due to differing perspectives from stakeholders which undermines projected gains of breed programs (Brandt et al., 2013). In the last decade, advancements within the CGIAR and beyond, including tools and frameworks from the Excellence in Breeding (EiB) Platform and the Gender and Breeding Initiative (GBI), have worked to improve market intelligence, breeding programs, seed systems, and the safeguarding of genetic resources. However, there is still scope for further innovation in research processes in terms of how breeding objectives are decided, how stakeholders’ perspectives are incorporated, how teams are organized and function, how knowledge gets translated into action, and how success is defined and measured.