The failure of the linear and non-participatory Agricultural Research and Development approaches to increase food security among smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa has prompted researchers to introduce an Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) concept. The IAR4D concept uses Innovation Platforms (IPs) to embed agricultural research and development organizations in a network to undertake multidisciplinary and participatory research.
This chapter aims to shed light on the broad debate surrounding when and why farmers adopt agricultural innovations, especially in the context of multi-stakeholder platforms (MSP) seeking to scale climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices. No research has yet tested the hypothesis that farmer entrepreneurship—defined as the innovative use of agricultural resources to create opportunities for value creation—may facilitate the adoption of CSA practices. This study is intended to fill that information gap.