The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
Technology relevant to food and agriculture, trade, resources and supply chains and climate and hazards: what it can do, the constraints it faces and its consequences for people and institutions.
Fig.How a finding is reviewed before it is published. Design, not a record.
Innovation at Food Nexus is the evaluation of technology relevant to food and agriculture: the need it addresses, the evidence behind it, its constraints and its consequences for safety, rights and the environment. Promising work can be built in Nexus Foundry and tested in Nexus Universe; nothing is called proven before test and review, and no product is endorsed.
Plains, deltas and basins, the corridors that carry food to ports, and how far each division sits from one, shown for the Black Sea region as an example geography for this subject.
Which problem does the technology address, and for whom?
What has been demonstrated, under what conditions, and what remains untested?
Cost, skills, infrastructure, data and governance requirements.
Effects on safety, rights, equity and the environment.
| Technology | What it could change | What remains to be shown |
|---|---|---|
| Satellite crop-type and condition mapping at field scale | Earlier, subnational yield outlooks where surveys are slow | Accuracy on smallholder plots and mixed cropping; cloud in the growing season |
| Heat- and drought-tolerant varieties | Lower yield sensitivity to the extremes that drive synchronous failure | Performance across farming systems; seed system reach and affordability |
| Off-grid cold storage | Reduced post-harvest loss where grids are weak | Maintenance, financing and use at village scale |
| Digital market information for farmers | Better price discovery and less distress selling | Connectivity, literacy and whether information changes bargaining power |
| Precision fertiliser application | Less nitrogen use per unit of output and less exposure to gas prices | Cost and agronomic advice for small farms |
Promising work can be built in Nexus Foundry and tested under controlled conditions through Nexus Universe. No technology is described as proven before it has been tested and reviewed.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Technology readiness level | A scale from basic principles to proven operation that describes how mature a technology is. |
| Responsible innovation | Anticipating and governing the effects of new technology together with society. |
| Testbed | A controlled setting, from a lab rig to a field site or sandbox, for trying a technology before it meets real conditions of use. |
| Acute food insecurity | Food insecurity severe enough to threaten lives or livelihoods at a given time, classified in five phases by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. |
The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.