The purpose of this article is to assess the inclusivity of on-farm demonstration across Europe, in relation to age, gender, and geographical location of participants. The paper is based on a survey of 1162 on-farm demonstrators (farmers and organisations) and three supraregional workshops. Overall, on farm-demonstrations were found to be engaging young(er) farmers who are at a career stage of being able to implement long-term innovations. However, across Europe demonstrations were primarily attended by men.
There have been repeated calls for a ‘new professionalism’ for carrying out agricultural research for development since the 1990s. At the centre of these calls is a recognition that for agricultural research to support the capacities required to face global patterns of change and their implications on rural livelihoods, requires a more systemic, learning focused and reflexive practice that bridges epistemologies and methodologies.
The paper explores the strength of social networks in the agricultural innovation systems (AISs) in Ghana and the effect of AISs on adoption of improved farm technology. The paper uses social network analysis (SNA) tools to identify, map and analyze the AISs and the two-stage Heckman selection model. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods allows testing the differential effects of social networks on technology adoption in the Ghananian Plantain Sector
The latest comprehensive research agenda in the Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension was published in 2012 (Faure, Desjeux, and Gasselin 2012), and since then there have been quite some developments in terms of biophysical, ecological, climatological, social, political and economic trends that impact farming and the transformation of agriculture and food systems at large as well as new potentially disruptive technologies.
Katalyst has identified that Bangladesh’s craft sector possesses a vast potential to contribute to women’s economic empowerment (WEE). . The ‘Empowering Women in Craft’ publication shows how an innovative partnership between Katalyst and BRAC-Aarong provides new perspectives for independent producers and women artisans in the craft industry.
This booklet describes some recent, stand-out innovations and achievements that are the fruits of this future-oriented partnership, fully supported by the Katalyst project. As Katalyst is in its third phase of operations, some of the milestone achievements of the project are reviewed. The project expects to expand on these successful models to be implemented throughout Bangladesh.
Voices of Change brings you stories that are representative of the wide range of Katalyst’s work across Bangladesh. The project uses the market development approach, which is an indirect way of working to change the existing market systems as a means to benefit the poor people. In these stories, the beneficiaries share with you the constraints they faced as well as the solutions they found to bring about radical changes in their lives.
In 2014-2016, Katalyst project and the Bangladesh Crop Protection Association (BCPA) extended their work by training farmers, women, retailers and pesticide spray men on the safe and judicious use of pesticides (SUP). This initiative improved the ability of farmers to select the right types of pesticide, and to use them appropriately with the correct dosage.
Building on this potential, Katalyst’s Women’s Economic Empowement (WEE) sector designed an intervention to provide training in modern prawn cultivation techniques and input and create linkages between feed and aqua-chemical companies with women prawn farmers of the Jessore-Khulna Bagerhat Satkhira Narail belt. Through this intervention, 22,170 women farmers have improved access to quality inputs and relevant know-how.
The farmer field school (FFS) concept has been widely adopted, and such schools have the reputation of strengthening farmers’ capacity to innovate. Although their impact has been studied widely, what is involved in their scaling and in their becoming an integral part of agricultural innovation systems has been studied much less. In the case of the Sustainable Tree Crops Programme in Cameroon, we investigate how a public–private partnership (PPP) did not lead to satisfactory widespread scaling in the cocoa innovation system.