A worthy agricultural innovation system (AIS) is one that that helps an agricultural sector be productive, sustainable and resilient and facilitates reduction in poverty and malnutrition. How can an AIS be made resilient in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic is a question pondered in this note. The key issue will be continued strong investment in knowledge and technology creation that underpins growth in productivity and the active pursuit of mechanisms that make agriculture more resilient to the emerging environments challenges around the world.
This publication provides a collection of papers, commentaries, expert opinions and reflections on state-of-the-art innovation systems thinking and approaches in agriculture. It is the direct output of a CTA and WUR/CoS-SIS collaboration which had its genesis in an expert consultation on ‘Innovation Systems: Towards Effective Strategies in support of Smallholder Farmers’.
The creation of Competitive Research Grants (CRGs) is globally recognized as an institutional innovation for improving the effectiveness of agricultural research. Unlike block grants for research, CRGs are expected to bring in many top-quality proposals from a wide range of actors, selecting the best out of them and thus getting more value for money.
This research note explains the results of social experiment designed with three primary objectives. These include (1) to mitigate the digital divide concerning the accessibility of forecasted weather information and crop advisories for women farmers in Bangladesh and (2) to assess the potential impact of a digital climate advisory tool on the agricultural practices of climate-smart agriculture facilitated by digital advisory tools for stakeholders in the value chain, such as microfinance institutions offering crop loans in areas facing higher weather-related risks.
This article reviews the approaches proposed by SCARDA to address capacity strengthening for research management, how implementation took place and the lessons learned from the implementation activities. It begins with an overview of the intended project outputs and approach to capacity strengthening, followed by the implementation processes as undertaken in each sub-regional organisation and finishes with the lessons learned.
The poor performance of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa is known to be largely due to the lack of effective and client- responsive agricultural research and development that could generate appropriate technologies and innovations to stimulate the agricultural development process. As a contribution to address this challenge, the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), with support from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), developed a project for Strengthening Capacity for Agricultural Research and Development in Africa (SCARDA).
This Economic and Sector Work paper, “Enhancing Agricultural Innovation: How to Go Beyond the Strengthening of Research Systems,” was initiated as a result of the international workshop, “Development of Research Systems to Support the Changing Agricultural Sector,” organized by the Agriculture and Rural Development Department of the World Bank in June 2004 in Washington, DC.
This briefing considers the status, systems, instruments and institutions underpinning agricultural innovation and research for development (ARD) globally and in the ACP countires. It puts a strong emphasis on lessons learnt and opportunities for successful agricultural innovation, based on broad range of interventions at different levels of the agricultural value chain. It analyses participatory innovation processes to find more efficient and effective modes of agricultural research and technology development benefiting farmers and rural communities.
This document represents a collaborative effort by the Secretariat of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) and the Regional Forums to agree on a common policy for advocacy on Information and Communication Management. The recognition of knowledge as a critical resource for practising efficient farming and developing agriculture makes sharing and exchange of knowledge globally vital for agricultural development.
In the post-harvest area and in agriculture research in general, both in India and internationally, policy attention is returning to the question of how innovation can be encouraged and promoted and thus how impact on the poor can be achieved. This publication assembles several cases from the post-harvest sector. These provide examples of successful innovation that emerged in quite different ways. Its purpose is to illustrate and analyze the diversity and often highly context-specific nature of the processes that lead to and promote innovation.