Many small-scale irrigation systems are characterized by low yields and deteriorating infrastructure. Interventions often erroneously focus on increasing yields and rehabilitating infrastructure. Small-scale irrigation systems have many of the characteristics of complex socio-ecological systems, with many different actors and numerous interconnected subsystems. However, the limited interaction between the different subsystems and their agents prevents learning and the emergence of more beneficial outcomes.
This article addresses the impact of Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) on food security among smallholder farmers in three countries of southern Africa (Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi). Southern Africa has suffered continued hunger despite a myriad of technological interventions that have been introduced in agriculture to address issues of food security, as well as poverty alleviation.
Various authors have identified the potential relevance of innovation system approaches for inclusive innovation, that is, the means by which new goods and services are developed for and by the poor. However, it is still a question how best to operationalize this. Innovation platforms (IPs) represent an example of putting an inclusive innovation system approach into practice by bringing different types of stakeholders together to address issues of mutual concern and interest with a specific focus on the marginalized poor.
Description du sujet. Une approche système basée sur la co-conception et l’évaluation expérimentale in situ de prototypes de systèmes de culture (SDC) a été mise en œuvre dans le projet INRA « GeDuNem » pour une gestion durable des nématodes à galles (NG) dans les systèmes maraîchers sous abris.
This paper compares lessons learned from nine studies that explored institutional determinants of innovation towards sustainable intensification of West African agriculture. The studies investigated issues relating to crop, animal, and resources management in Benin, Ghana, and Mali.The studies showed that political ambitions to foster institutional change were often high (restoring the Beninese cotton sector and protecting Ghanaian farmers against fluctuating cocoa prices) and that the institutional change achieved was often remarkable.
There is increasing emphasis being put on the need to be 'internationally competitive'. This imperative is being driven, it is argued, by the globalization of economic and corporate life. This 'globalization' is the subject of a burgeoning academic literature. To achieve and maintain the necessary competitive edge requires companies to be innovative, technologically dynamic, and organizationally efficient - in a dynamic, not just static sense.
In Bangladesh, strengthening agricultural innovation calls for facilitation of interactive communication and a wide range of mediation tasks within (and between) stakeholders operating in different social spheres. This paper examines how a public-sector agricultural extension agency has attempted to change its roles in implementing a major agricultural extension project in order to strengthen agricultural innovation.
This article studies the impact of innovation platforms in Tanga Region, Tanzania, set up by the MilkIT dairy development project to intensify smallholder production through feed enhancement and value chain approaches. The conceptual framework used builds up from three socio-economic theories. The Structure-Conduct-Performance model of markets contributes its elegant assumption, linking the way markets are organized with how market actors behave, which has an influence on market performance.
Recent experiences in participatory video-making raise the question of how best to use this medium for enhancing local seed innovation systems. Embedded in a mini-process of participatory action research, two styles of participatory video—scripted and scriptless—were tested and assessed together with farmers and facilitators in Bogra District, Bangladesh.
This paper contributes to the ongoing discussion in the scientific literature on the advantages and disadvantages of privatization of extension and advisory services and the shift from thinking in terms of the traditional Agricultural Knowledge System towards a broader Agricultural Innovation System.