2011 Annual Meeting

When: April 19-20, 2011
Where: University of California, Davis (USA)

The Horticulture Innovation Lab's first "annual meeting" brought together project collaborators and partners for a three-day review of initial project accomplishments, knowledge exchange and networking.

Event recap

On April 19-20, the Horticulture Innovation Lab (then called Horticulture CRSP) hosted 65 project collaborators and international partners at our spring meeting here at University of California, Davis. Some invitees traveled for three days to share their projects and experiences during this first year of Horticulture CRSP.   

Horticulture CRSP’s first funding cycle financed 15 different Immediate Impact projects in 21 countries. These projects aimed to improve post‐harvest technologies, production systems, marketing strategies, pest management and nutrition. During the first day of the conference, each of the Immediate Impact Projects presented their lessons learned throughout the year. They focused on the technology and scalability of their projects, modes of delivery and the particular cultural or political considerations of project implementation.  Time was allocated so that each project was able to receive constructive feedback from their colleagues.   

The second day of the conference focused on the future of Horticultural CRSP and how to scale up technologies implemented in both the Immediate Impact projects and the newer Exploratory and Pilot projects. In a breakout session, smaller groups discussed how scale up projects successful in one village to 200,000 villages. In the afternoon, Horticulture CRSP received advice from conference participants about how to formulate the next call for proposals in order to have the greatest global impact.   

During the third day, participants were taken to visit the Horticultural CRSP technologies on campus. They also toured the Russell Ranch Sustainable Agricultural Facility, Full Belly organic farm in the Capay Valley, and the Davis Farmer’s Market.   

– Program newsletter article, August 2011