FAO & EU Partners with Students to Support AgriFood Systems

by Emmanuel Sitta

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the European Union (EU) have partnered with students from top-ranked universities to design creative solutions that will harness behavioral science to support sustainable agrifood systems in developing countries.In collaboration with the European Union and guided by experts from FAO and mentors from behavioral science institutions, students participated in a 48-hour competition to develop potential solutions to an agrifood system challenge in Sierra Leone.

This collaboration took place as part of the annual Nudgeathon, organized by the London School of Economics Behavioural and Psychological Science Society (LSESU), UCL Behavioural Innovations Society, and Cambridge University Behavioural Insights Society.

The challenge was to identify nudging strategies for farmers and financial institutions in the West African country that can lead to better access to and use of financial products and services. Only 28% of Sierra Leone’s adult population has access to formal finance. Increasing farmers' access to and the use of finance can allow them to invest in their crops or farms through purchasing better equipment or inputs, diversifying income, increasing productivity, or enhancing food security, nutrition, and resilience.Behavioral interventions have proven effective in increasing financial inclusion and involvement by targeting farmers and financial institutions in improving the design, communication, and delivery of financial products and services. Partnering with the London

“Nudgeathon” 2025 provided a unique opportunity for FAO to discuss innovative and evidence-based behavioural ideas around this issue.FAO’s work focuses on strengthening the connection between farmers and the practices they need to succeed.

However, structural and behavioural barriers often impede this link. The FAO Investment Centre, in collaboration with the FAO Office of Innovation, and with support of the European Union through the Sustainable Agrifood Systems Intelligence (SASI) initiative, is leveraging applied behavioural science to unpack the root causes of the barriers and plans to design innovative solutions to overcome them.Student proposals considered local context and culturally adapted incentives.

Their ideas included tailored financial products, aligning loan repayment schemes with different crop harvest cycles, a public-private sharing of existing postal vans to bring financial services to rural areas, and incentives to encourage rural women’s savings groups. These ideas aim to reduce the geographical and psychological barriers to accessing and using finance in rural areas.Julia Hammann, Innovation Specialist (Behavioural Science) at the FAO Office of Innovation, was inspired by the students’ creativity:

“We saw bright young minds applying behavioural science to solve a food system challenge. Each proposal included a thorough behavioural assessment, understanding barriers and levers, as well as a proposed evaluation framework to test the impact and behaviour change at a pilot stage before deciding to scale up.”

According to Alexandra Gonzalez, Economist Policy Expert at the FAO Investment Centre: “The results from the Nudgeathon provide valuable inputs for one of the SASI components, aimed at designing and testing behavioural science solutions to catalyse investments in sustainable agrifood systems in countries where the initiative is being implemented. Students’ proposals may be considered as part of potential interventions to be discussed in the coming months, together with governments and local agrifood actors".