This paper illustrates the Small Stock Innovation Platform, an initiative which is one of the key tangible outcomes of the Strengthening Capacity in Agricultural Research for Development in Africa (SCARDA) program, focused on strengthening capacity in agricultural research systems in selected countries and institutions in all three sub-regions of Sub Saharan Africa.
While the Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) initiative provides data and analysis of domestic public and private spending on agricultural research and development for a wide range of developing countries, the literature pays little attention, if any, to foreign assistance to agricultural, fishing and forestry research and agricultural extension. The objective of the present study is to fill this gap.
These notes summarise reflections on local innovation and participatory innovation development that took place within the PROLINNOVA International Support Team (IST), based on observations and discussions with network partners during advisory visits and international workshops.
This report explores the role of rural networks in enhancing innovation processes, questioning the features of the agricultural/rural networks could enhance farmers’ ability to co-innovate in cooperation with other actors. The prospect of this investigation is also to provide interesting and significant experiences that constitute examples for the ‘European Innovation Partnership’ by increasing farmers’ capacities to create, test, implement and evaluate innovations in cooperation with other rural actors.
The report synthesises the research conducted under the PRO AKIS project for the topic "Designing, implementing and maintaining agricultural/rural networks to enhance farmers’ ability to innovate in cooperation with other rural actors".
The paper explores the implications of rural livelihood diversity for agricultural innovation policies. It summarises literature on the nature of rural poverty, with particular emphasis on the relative roles of farm and non-farm income. It also reviews the various roles, direct and indirect, that agricultural innovation can play in rural poverty reduction. Finally, it uses an agricultural knowledge and information systems (AKIS) perspective to argue for a differentiated approach to targeting agricultural innovations, based on an analysis of rural assets.
The purpose of this issues paper is to provide an overview of the issues, numbers, disputes, and approaches so that contributors to SOW11 can share a common framework and consider how the innovations they describe fit into the larger international discourse. The paper is structured as follows: • Section 2 describes diverse perspectives on food security that emphasize global supply chains to feed middle-class populations in cities; smallholder farmers who still supply much of the world; and smallholder farmers who are relatively disengaged in commercial markets.
The problem being addressed during this session of the Second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD2), which was held in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in 2012, is how we can bring together the needed diversity – of stakeholders and approaches – and understand better a number of multidimensional and complex questions such as: How can we inform stakeholders on alternative future scenarios and debate the desirability, consequences, winners and losers of diverse scenarios? How to better combine quantitative analyses with qualitative arguments?
There have been numerous episodes of widespread adoption of improved seed and long-term achievements in the development of the maize seed industry in Sub-Saharan Africa. This summary takes a circumspect view of technical change in maize production. Adoption of improved seed has continued to rise gradually, now representing an estimated 44 percent of maize area in Eastern and Southern Africa (outside South Africa), and 60 percent of maize area in West and Central Africa. Use of fertilizer and restorative crop management practices remains relatively low and inefficient.
Poverty reduction is a long-standing development objective of many developing countries and their aid donors, including the World Bank. To achieve this goal, these countries and organizations have sought to improve smallholder agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as part of a broader rural development agenda aimed at providing a minimal basket of goods and services in rural areas to satisfy basic human needs. These goods and services include not only food, health care, and education, but also infrastructure.