Dr Simon Cook:

Understanding global food and water systems

Dr Cook leads research to support the sustainable development of food and water resources in tropical and temperate regions. Currently he coordinates projects in river basins in Africa, Asia and Latin America (see map below) to support poverty alleviation through the development of water and food systems. He has over 20 years research and specialist technical expertise in the use of spatial information at local to global scales, and has extensive experience with agricultural systems in Australia, Latin America, South-East Asia, Africa and the UK. His many contacts include academic, industrial, government and non-government institutes.

Current activities

Challenge Program for Water & Food:  Dr Simon Cook is a senior scientist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture based in Cali, Colombia. For the last 3 years he has been seconded to the CGIAR Challenge Program for Food and Water (CPWF, www.waterandfood.org/), for whom he coordinates the Basin Focal Projects http://cpwfbfp.pbwiki.com/. These are a set of 10 inter-disciplinary projects that analyze the complex relationships between people, agriculture and water in major river basins of the world. His duties are to  coordinate project teams from over 30 institutes using a broad understanding of rural development, agriculture and hydrology. He is responsible for the overall vision and coherence of research that is essential to make a significant contribution to solving the global problems relating to water and food.

The basin focal projects started in 2005 with a budget of approximately US$10m. They are delivering critical research insights to support global efforts to tackle the emerging problems of water and food crisis. In September 2008, several aspects of this research - from the Mekong, Volta, Sao Francisco and Karkheh basins - were presented at a highly acclaimed session of the World Water Congress in Montpellier. They will be published in March 2009 in a special issue of Water International. See Basin focal projects at World Water Congress 2008. Teams in the Indo-Ganges, Limpopo, Andes, Niger, Nile and Yellow River basins will deliver results at the end of 2009. These insights are needed urgently to help focus research and development towards the needs of the billions of people who are affected by worsening water and food crises.

Dr Cook’s research is outcome-focussed. Change in agriculture is enabled by reducing uncertainties caused by complexity and spatial variation. To tackle major complex issues of water, food and poverty, it is essential to use a strongly inter-disciplinary approach to couple research to problems as they exist in entire river basins. Dr Cook is able to develop this insight through a broad understanding of issues ranging from the biophysical, social and political sciences. Moreover, he has become able to apply these insights to change-supporting processes within basins.

Site specific insuranceDr Cook has been involved in the Challenge Program for Water and Food since its inception in 2002. He contributed to its original proposal. Prior to coordinating the basin focal projects, he was the Leader for Theme 2 – Water and People in Catchments - and responsible for the oversight of nearly 20 projects.

Site-specific insurance: Dr Cook also leads a small team developing drought insurance and has helped pioneer a novel method of insurance that is suitable for poor farmers in the tropics. Drought hits millions of poor farmers each year, and the risk of drought deprives many more of access to micro-finance, without which they cannot make basic investments in fertilizer, seed or infrastructure. Micro-finance is spreading fast throughout the world but farmers are excluded because what they do is viewed as risky by insurers. By coupling climatic information to crop simulation models, Dr Cook and co-workers have developed a technique to support insurance products, for any location in the tropical world. For more information go to Site specific insurance

Background

Dr Simon Cook has a background in geography, soil science and agronomy. He trained at the Universities of Cambridge, Reading and Swansea in the U.K.  Since that time, has spent much of his career developing spatial information products to support agricultural decision-making at field, basin and global scale. He has over 17 years experience managing research projects.

Dr Cook joined CIAT in 2001 to lead the Land Use Project, a group of over 50 GIS specialists with projects in Latin America, South-East Asia and Africa. Since 2002, he has developed expertise in the area of food and water systems, as they affect rural development and poverty alleviation. Although based in Cali, Colombia, he has spent substantial periods in Asia and Africa and was based in Colombo, Sri Lanka, for 2 years.

Prior to joining CIAT, Dr Cook led the precision agriculture research group in CSIRO, Australia, based in Perth. With colleagues, his research there focussed on the development of precision agriculture techniques for the grains industry. See Precision Agriculture. Since 1991, he has researched innovative methods of soil and land resource mapping in Australia, S.E. Asia and Central America.

Academic qualifications

Dr Cook has the following qualifications:

• Bachelor of Science with Honours in Physical Geography from the University of Wales, UK, 1981
• Master of Science with Distinction in Pedology and Soil Survey from the University of Reading, UK, 1982.
• Doctor of Philosophy in Soil Science from the University of Cambridge, UK, 1989.

Applied research highlights

• Basin focal projects
• Bayesian network mapping. Poverty, soil variation
• Gamma radiometric soil mapping
• On-farm experimentationfor precision agriculture

Related topics

Basin focal projects. Go to cpwfbfp.pbwiki.com/

BFP working papers Go to www.waterandfood.org/research/basin-focal-projects/bfp-publications.html

Site-specific insurance. Go to Site specific insurance

Precision agriculture. Go to Precision Agriculture

Contact:

s.cook@cgiar.org

simonernest@gmail.com

30 December 2008

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