Present refrigeration and cold transport technologies typically use either diesel fuel (expensive and a source of pollution) and/or electric power (often not available in rural areas). Promoting the expansion of existing technologies for cold-chain development will have the side effects of increasing pollution, greenhouse gas production and associated climate change. Clean cold-chain development is an environmentally sustainable way to achieve essential cooling and reduction in the post-harvest losses.
CABI’s Plantwise programme runs local plant clinics in 24 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America where trained ‘plant doctors’ provide on-the-spot diagnosis and advice for farmers who bring samples to the clinics. A database that records each consultation and shares knowledge across clinics and countries continually builds the ability of the programme to respond to farmers’ needs. The programme embodies key principles of an innovation systems approach.
The concept of an innovation platform is increasingly used in interventions inspired by agricultural innovation systems thinking, as a way of bringing stakeholders from a sector together to enable transformative change. An essential role on such innovation platforms is thought to be that of the ‘innovation champion’, but this role has so far not been unravelled.
Where CGIAR breeding programs rely on the private sector for the multiplication and distribution of improved cultivars, persistent challenges have dampened their impact on varietal adoption and turnover rates. Part of the problem is that research and practice in CGIAR and among its national breeding program partners tend to treat the private sector as a vehicle for seed delivery, rather than as commercial businesses facing a range of unique constraints and threats.
Asian agriculture is faced with major new challenges as a result of globalisation, urbanisation and environmental problems such as climate change. To meet these challenges, Asian agriculture needs to become more knowledge intensive and innovation oriented. This article frames the new Asian challenge in terms of innovation theory, emphasising the importance of the co-evolution of technological and institutional change and linkages between actors in open, interactive innovation processes.
To determine whether a farmer’s accessibility predicts the delivery of extension services, this study used banana Xanthomonas wilt (BXW) disease-management advisory as a typical case with which to collect extension-delivery information from 690 farmers, distinguished by their respective accessibility. Cost–distance analysis was applied to define each farmer’s accessibility. The results revealed that a farmer’s accessibility does not predict extension delivery to that farmer in all forms of the examined extension parameters.
This report details the results of the Mid-Term Evaluation (MTE) of the Sustainable Nutrition and Agriculture Promotion (SNAP) program in Sierra Leone. This is a five-year USAID Food for Peace (FFP) Multi-Year Assistance Program. The overall goal of SNAP is to reduce food insecurity and increase resiliency among the most food insecure and vulnerable rural populations.
The Bureau for Food Security (BFS) of USAID commissioned five country studies examining the scaling up of agricultural innovations through commercial pathways in developing countries, to understand how the Agency – including its country missions and implementing partners (IPs) – can use donor projects to achieve greater scale and long-term commercial sustainability.
The USAID-Inma Agribusiness Program focuses on developing Iraq’s private agribusinesses by facilitating the formation of fully-integrated value chains and improving agricultural quality and production. Inma, the Arabic word for ‘growth’, connects farmers to markets, increases the competitiveness of Iraqi agribusinesses, and facilitates domestic and foreign agricultural partnerships.
Esta publicación es el resumen de los resultados del proceso de sistematización participativo del proyecto ACORDAR, financiado por USAID, para las temáticas de cacao, café, frijol, hortalizas y malanga, género, municipalismo y desarrollo empresarial en Nicaragua. Cinco años de trabajo en campo, más de 52 millones de dólares invertidos, cerca de 200 organizaciones trabajando en alianza, 50 municipalidades cobijadas (un tercio de las municipalidades del País), 25 gobiernos locales que invirtieron más de 20 millones de dólares en el fortalecimiento de las cadenas de valor, 7711 familias produc