Contemporarily, agriculture is facing many challenges connected with growing food demand and scarcity of natural resources. In meeting these challenges innovation has become of crucial importance. The paper aims at providing an insight on the topic of the needs and possibilities of open innovation and its significance for the transition towards sustainable and more productive agriculture of EU. We argue that given the complexity of innovation process there emerges the need for effective interactions between all actors of agriculture sector.
This paper starts describing the importance of agroforestry systems for the increase of productivity, resilience and efficiency. After the papaer describes the current state of agroforestry in Eastern Europe and its challenges and introduces good examples of agroforestry innovation networks initiatives in the region.
The main objective of this paper is to describe the AgroFE and Agrof-MM projects. This projects aims to develop an agroforestry training system based on a common framework and core content, and to promote training at European level. The knowledge databank is a component of the project training system. It aims to gather and share a set of documents, resources that partners can use and which will have been accessed by learners and the public users.
In the paper, is presented the opinion of the main stakeholders to the Innovation potential of the Institute of Agricultural Economics and Information (IAEI) as a significant actor in the AKIS. In the paper, is also defined the innovation potential of the IAEI as the ability to create, execute or provide the innovation and crucial information to the Czech AKIS. In order to mapping the current position and the innovation potential of the IAEI, were used desk research and semi-structured interviews
The aim of this research is to explore the different policy frameworks adopted by the Italian regions to support cooperation for innovation projects in RDPs in the period 2007-2013. These were analysed against the conceptual background outlined by the European Commission and the international literature on the interactive approach to innovation processes (EC, 2013). The study is supported by the use of a mixed-methods approach, based on desk and on field research, qualitative and quantitative methods
The aim of the paper is to analyse the linkage between science development, innovative ideas, their dissemination, establishment of extension services and their impact on the innovative development of the agricultural sector. As a result, solutions for expanding the coverage of the extension network, together with the diversification and improvement of its services are provided. The primary data from key stakeholders were collected through a semi-structured interview.
The purpose of this paper is to map some elements that can contribute to an IFAD strategy to stimulate and support pro-poor innovations. It is an initial or exploratory document that hopefully will add to an ongoing and necessary debate, and is not intended as a final position paper. The document is organized as follows.
African agriculture is currently at a crossroads, at which persistent food shortages are compounded by threats from climate change. But, as this book argues, Africa can feed itself in a generation and help contribute to global food security. To achieve this Africa has to define agriculture as a force in economic growth by: advancing scientific and technological research; investing in infrastructure; fostering higher technical training; and creating regional markets.
This paper, presented at the 12th European IFSA Symposium (Workshop: "Generating spaces for innovation in agricultural and rural development") in 2016, aims to summarise the main features of the AgriSpin project. The project is being financed by the Horizon 2020 research program of the European Commission aiming at contributing to system-oriented innovation research in agriculture and as complementary to the policy instrument EIP AGRI. The idea behind EIP AGRI is that innovation emerges from interaction between stakeholders.
The European Innovation Partnership for agricultural productivity and sustainability (EIP-AGRI), which can be perceived as a platform based on interaction among farmers, researchers, and advisors/extensionists, represents a useful tool for a better understanding of applied innovation processes.