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CAMBIA's Mission & Ethos

Mission

CAMBIA, in Spanish and Italian, means 'change'. This meaning is at the very heart of CAMBIA's Mission.

CAMBIA was initially an acronym for the "Center for the Application of Molecular Biology to International Agriculture". However, as CAMBIA's public good mandate has become broader, to encompass methods for all kinds of life sciences innovation, we no longer use this acronym.

Ethos

Our institutional ethos is built around an awareness of the need and opportunity for local commitment to achieving lasting solutions to food security, agricultural, public health and environmental problems. We envision a situation in which the broadest community of researchers and farmers are empowered with dramatic new technologies to become innovators in developing their own solutions to the challenges they face - solutions for which they feel ownership. A clear vision of what aspects of the status quo we wish to change and what positive outcomes we wish to see guides our activities.

• Symptoms
  Nutritional deficiencies, food shortages, crop failures, population growth, poverty, environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity... all are often perceived as major problems facing the world today. In fact, these are only symptoms of the real problem.

• Problem
  The real problem lies with our way of interacting with the natural world. Agriculture is increasingly uncoupled from the environmental systems in which it operates. The available diversity - biological, genetic, ecosystem and social - has not been adequately embraced and the imagination and commitment of people and societies has not been sufficiently engaged in the process of innovation. This is not sustainable in the long term for environments or societies. Working towards a solution...

• Solution: CAMBIA
  CAMBIA, a small institution, can have a disproportionately large effect when its interventions are catalytic. CAMBIA does this through strategic design, development and delivery of new technologies, competencies and policies.

Due in part to the cumbersome and expensive nature of many of the technologies available and the legal and policy umbrellas in which they act, transnational companies are increasingly centralising control and production of life sciences products, and are thus dominating the technology landscape in agriculture and health. This has resulted in unprecedented public concerns over the new technologies used and missed opportunities to use new technologies for public good, especially in less developed countries.

CAMBIA wishes to see a vibrant public and private sector contributing myriad solutions to the diverse challenges of food security worldwide. This vision requires new enabling technologies and skills that can break the logjam stifling creative business and public initiatives. This in turn will allow diverse players to regain and appropriate measure of control over research, crop breeding, diagnostics, utilization of genetic diversity and management of agricultural and health systems.