Sowing the Seeds of Progress: Mauritius’ Quest for a State-of-the-Art Agricultural Observatory
A workshop will be held this Thursday, November 7, 2024 at the Regional Training Center (RTC) in Réduit, to present the first results of the feasibility study of an agricultural observatory on Mauritius.
This observatory represents the Mauritian component of the regional observatory of the South-West Indian Ocean Agricultural Observatory (OA-OI), an initiative supported by the Regional Platform in Agricultural Research for Development (PRéRAD-OI) which has, today, eight partners Mauritian. and which has been led since its creation by the Center for International Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD* in Reunion). The aim of this feasibility study, carried out by Mathilde VAUTHIER (CIRAD), since February 2024, in close collaboration with several Mauritian public, private or civil society stakeholders, is to identify the conditions for the operation of an agricultural observatory in this territory.
A decision support tool to support the transformation of agricultural production systems
Describe and analyze the variety of agricultural operations present in a territory in order to promote actions and investments in favor of sustainable, inclusive and resilient production systems, adapted to the reality of the territories of the islands of the South-West Indian Ocean, as the main objective Ocean Agriculture Observatory India.
On a given territory, agricultural activities are systematically part of complex and diverse social and economic relations of production, distribution and exchange. This complexity and diversity is rarely taken into account when developing public agricultural policies and subsequent investment strategies. In general, these offer uniform solutions, applied to all types of agricultural operations, which are incompatible with the reality on the ground and are inefficient. Furthermore, the current context, marked by unprecedented crises (health, climate and economic), requires us to review our agricultural systems to ensure greater sustainability and resilience. Therefore, the integrated decision support tool that the observatory represents makes it possible to guide the actors who will use it in the expected changes and especially in improving the living conditions and food and nutritional security of rural households .
A workshop to share and discuss the first results
A number of meetings with stakeholders in the agricultural world held between February and July 2024 reveal a fragmentation of information systems on the agricultural sector as well as a dominance of highly sectoral data, with the plot as the only agricultural or production observation unit basic other than the size of the agricultural operation.
This workshop is an opportunity for a collective discussion on the first analyzes carried out by Mathilde Vauthier with the various stakeholders she met during her first two field trips, in February and June 2024.
Four sequences of participatory work will follow to present what is an agricultural observatory? which will show how an agricultural observatory can help to respond to various important issues for a territory and at different scales; ii/ what is the diversity of agriculture in Mauritius and how to represent it? a typology of agricultural operations is shared through different presentation media (tree structure, descriptive sheets, cartography, etc.) and the usefulness of such results is presented; iii/ who have the stakeholders met and what data is available? an analysis of their potential needs identified at this stage and a critical analysis of the available data will be shared; iv/ finally, what are the issues that the observatory could address? proposals for previously identified issues will be reworked together.
The expected results of this workshop are/ a common understanding of the ideas and concepts used by the observatory, the knowledge and information it allows to produce (structures and performances of agricultural holdings, scales of study, typology, data available, achievable, etc.); ii/ a representation of the diversity of the agricultural landscape and the data produced is shared and their potential uses are highlighted iii/ the expectations of the actors present in terms of the observatory are re-stated; iv/ the questions that the observatory could address are identified.
* CIRAD is the final research institute in France dedicated to agricultural research for the sustainable development of countries in tropical and intertropical zones. . Its research and development actions contribute to the development of Reunion’s agricultural and food sectors today and tomorrow by supporting them in their agro-ecological transformation and their adaptations and mitigation to climate change. ( directions-regional/reunion-mayotte-and-indian-ocean ) – It operates in the Southwest Indian Ocean and thus contributes to the influence of Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean through the regional platform in agricultural research for development, PréRAD-OI ( ) which it has led since its creation in 2014.
The platform, a unique umbrella system, brings together more than twenty public institutions (ministries), research institutions, institutions of higher education and agricultural training and technical institutions responsible for transfer, present in five member- IOC state (Madagascar, Mauritius, France-Réunion, Seychelles and the Union of the Comoros)