GAP Initiative - Out & About

This year has fittingly been a productive one for the Global Agricultural Productivity (GAP) Initiative! Following the first launch of the annual GAP Report in Washington, DC, last October, the GAP Initiative has been receiving more attention and presence in global dialogues.

In August of this year, CALS Global associate director and managing editor of the GAP Report, Jessica Agnew, was invited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to speak at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Senior Officials Meeting held in Seattle, WA. She presented regional analysis and trends on productivity growth to the Agricultural Technical Cooperation Working Group.

The GAP Initiative was also featured in a side event at the Africa Food Systems Transformation Summit held in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, in September, along with CABI International and the Global Center on Adaptation. Tom Thompson, director of CALS Global and executive editor of the GAP Report, featured on the panel of the event Supporting smallholder productivity and resilience through increased access to investment, information, and innovation along with CABI’s CEO Daniel Elgar and Maryanne Gichanga, CEO of the Kenyan start-up AgriTech Analytics.

Last week, the 2023 GAP Report was officially launched at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. About 100 people attended the event in person, and more than 150 people attended from around the world online. USDA Undersecretary Alexis Taylor and State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary Tony Fernandes, and other partners of the GAP Initiative and the Sustainable Productivity Growth Coalition provided framing of the importance of sustainable agricultural productivity growth and innovations and solutions to help achieve this.

Next up on the world tour - the GAP Initiative is going to Panama this November for the Latin America and Caribbean launch of the report. It will be jointly hosted with Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture and FONTAGRO, a cooperation mechanism to promote science, development, and innovation in food and agriculture for Latin America and the Caribbean.