Eight seeds for blog posts

What can I blog about on Thrive?

WLE recognizes that sustainable intensification of agriculture is a new, evolving concept, and its meaning and objectives subject to debate and contest. Thrive (formerly known as the Agriculture and Ecosystems Blog) was created with just this purpose in mind. The mission of Thrive is to facilitate a dialogue between contrasting perspectives and ideas around the fate of our agri-food systems and different viewpoints surrounding sustainable intensification of agriculture. We encourage articles from researchers and partners to discuss the issues, emerging results, contradictions and challenges they are facing.

Thrive is run separately from the WLE website in order to allow the space for discussion and freedom of expressions. Articles should be analytical and offer opinions that are backed up by evidence. We do not except submissions which are promotional or are focused on public relations. While the following list is certainly not exhaustive, it will give you a good idea of how you can use Thrive and what types of work we’re interested in receiving:

1. Reaching a wider audience: The Thrive Blog can assist in boosting views and downloads of your research articles. If you have written a journal article, book or contributed to an research project that aligns with one of our themes, write an analytical summary of it for Thrive and include a link to the article. Most academic publishers will enable a certain period of free downloads to facilitate this type of blogging. By posting your research to Thrive, you are exposing your research to an enormous network of scientists and development professionals who may not otherwise have access to your ideas. For a recent example, check out this post on IPES-Food’s first major report.

2. Reviewing research from others: Have you recently read a groundbreaking book or article that you think should be debated and discussed across the globe? Write a summary of it for Thrive, identifying its significance and pointing to its implications. As noted above, it is frequently possible to give our readers temporary access to journal articles. See this piece for a great example of an article review piece—in this case, an analysis of a scholarly article comparing “reductionist” and “integrative” approaches to water management policy.

3. Notes from the field: While conducting fieldwork, you might make observations that merit immediate discussion. You also might see something that is interesting or important, but don’t necessarily fit within the bounds of your primary research project(s). Thrive is the perfect place to incubate these ideas: once you’ve summarized your observations on Thrive, we will disseminate them throughout the CGIAR-WLE community where they will be discussed, extended, and potentially developed into new directions for research. Click here to check out a field report blog from a recent biomonitoring project in Myanmar.

4. Reflecting/analyzing a workshop or conference: Were you recently at a meeting that raised critical issues? Did you hear a debate at a conference that you think is worth extending? One of Thrive’s goals is to make conversations on sustainable agriculture legible and accessible: bringing face-to-face conversations online is one of the ways we do this. For examples, see this post on a recent partner meeting and this post on a recent Global Land Forum event on landscape conservation investment.

5. Policy analysis: Policy changes can have a tremendous impact on agricultural practice and ecological research. Thrive welcomes discussions of the policies that shape the agroecological world, such as this recent piece on the ICSU’s draft framework for understanding the sustainable development goals.

6. Comment on a topical issue: Have you noticed a trend in how certain topics are discussed and debated? Do you want to add a new perspective to the conversation, or refocus the debate around a different concept? Here’s an example from a WLE theme leader, calling for the prioritization of farmers’ voices in the sustainable intensification conversation.

7. Contribute to Science on the Pulse: Roughly every quarter, Thrive produces a review blog entitled “Science on the pulse.” While it is less formal than an academic review article, the Science on the Pulse series accomplishes the same basic function: key recent publications about a given topic are gathered together and briefly analyzed for the purpose of making knowledge accessible. To view the most recent Science on the Pulse, click here.

8. Propose (or respond to) a Big Question: Big Questions are another one of Thrive’s feature series: in this case, a series of major, pressing questions broadly related to the fields of agroecology and sustainable agriculture. Once posed, individuals with expertise in the Big Question’s field of focus are invited to respond. If you have a response to the most recent Big Question, or you would like to propose your own Big Question, please let us know.

We look forward to receiving your submissions. For our submission guidelines, please click here; other comments and questions about potential blog content can be directed Mike Dunford, the editor of Thrive, at m.dunford@cgiar.org.