Innovation offers tremendous potential to boost food security, improve agricultural productivity, help farmers adapt to alterations in the agricultural environment created by climate change, and mitigate the contributions of agriculture to climate change. This includes biological innovations like improved seed varieties, ICT innovation like artificial intelligence, and social innovations like improved loan products or agricultural advice. These can all work together, for example a digital advisory system for farmers can deliver AI-weather forecasts and agricultural advice, increasing take-up of new seed varieties. 

Innovation is largely driven by the market and public research funders in high-income and some upper-middle income countries, which risks leaving farmers in low- and middle-income countries behind under existing institutions. For example, there are more than sixty times as many patents for innovations related to the European maize borer as there are for the African maize stalk borer. Commercial incentives for some types of innovation fall far short of their social value, leading to underinvestment in R&D. For example, animal feeds that reduce methane emissions would generate social value far in excess of their commercial value, since farmers currently have limited incentives to reduce methane use. 

Investments in innovation to improve agricultural productivity in low- and middle-income countries can have very high social returns. For example, research conducted by CGIAR, which has historically targeted investments in agricultural innovation for low- and middle-income countries, has an estimated social benefit-cost ratio of 10 to 1 (Alston et al. 2021). High-yielding crop varieties increased yields of food crops by 44 percent between 1965 and 2010 through the Green Revolution (Gollin et al. 2021). Public R&D investment in Brazil between 1975 and the present increased agricultural productivity by 110 percent and had a social benefit-cost ratio of 17 to 1 (Akerman et al., 2025).

 The Innovation Commission has identified innovations that could generate very high returns, but are currently underfunded. The Commission focused on  innovations ready to scale with three principles. First, the Commission looked for  innovations with rigorous causal evidence of both impact and value for money—both for the innovation itself (e.g., flood-resistant seeds) and for policies to increase adoption and diffusion at scale. Second, the Commission made judgments about whether an innovation had a plausible pathway to scale. Third, the Commission used economic principles to analyze the appropriate role of different types of institutions (including the role of governments, multilateral institutions, and the private sector for scaling any particular innovation). The resulting list of innovations is not intended to be comprehensive, but rather to illustrate that there are many innovations that meet criteria for evidence of impact, cost effectiveness, and a pathway to scale, but are not scaling under existing institutions.

Alongside these recommendations, the Innovation Commission took practical steps to work with governments, researchers, and multilateral institutions to transition innovations to scale. This included making further limited investments to adapt and refine innovations, and engaging with policy makers to provide technical assistance and support with adapting and refining the innovation and transitioning it to scale. For example, the Commission identified weather forecasting as a key priority and worked with partners to support India’s Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW) to disseminate AI-based monsoon onset forecasts to approximately 38 million farmers. The Commission also disseminated evidence to MDBs. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) committed  $300 million USD to support advanced weather forecasts. The Commission partnered with the UAE and Gates Foundation to design Aim for Scale, a new mechanism to transition food systems innovations to scale, with an initial focus on weather forecasting. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) committed  $300 million USD to support advanced weather forecasts. 

The Commission also identified some earlier stage innovations that have very high expected returns or the potential for transformative impact. Initial investments could be made in the next stage of R&D, with subsequent investments dependent on results.

The Commission has also identified meta-innovations: institutions to support the development, testing, and scaling of innovations in low- and middle-income countries. For example, the Commission helped to design the  Agricultural Innovation Mechanism for Scale, (AIM for Scale, launched  at COP29. Another example is advanced market commitments. The Market Shaping Accelerator is working with partners to develop an advanced market commitment for climate-resilient crops and another for enteric methane removal. A third example is evidence-based innovation funds, like USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures or France’s Fund for Innovation in Development. A similar fund could be launched to focus on innovation in climate and agriculture. Below, we provide brief descriptions of innovations identified through the Commission’s work. In some cases, we link to background papers or reports prepared in advance of COP28 or in advance of COP30. Some of these papers are likely to be updated in the future, and additional papers and reports will be posted over time.

Note that this page displays the work of the Commission Secretariat, hosted at the Development Innovation Lab at the University of Chicago. Content posted here does not necessarily represent the views of all members of the Innovation Commission, nor their institutions.

Adaptation Innovations 

Multiple adaptation innovations have the potential to boost the resilience of hundreds of millions of people in low- and middle-income countries. 

• Harnessing Artificial Intelligence to Empower Farmers with Weather Information
• Digital Agriculture Systems and the Emerging Role of Artificial Intelligence
• Financial innovations, including asset-collateralized loans, pay-at-harvest insurance, harvest- and lean-season loans, and emergency flood loans 
• Climate-resilient social protection, including weather-responsive anticipatory cash transfers and graduation programs 
• Simplified protocols to treat malnutrition 
• Training for rainwater harvesting

Mitigation innovations

Multiple mitigation innovations that provide substantial co-benefits in low- and middle-income countries also have rigorous evidence of impact and value for money.

• Payments for ecosystem services 
• Improved cookstoves 

Earlier-stage innovations

• Innovations to reduce livestock methane emissions
• Microbial fertilizer
• Alternative proteins
• Self-propagating climate resilient hybrid seeds
• Soil-based and biological sequestration