This is the proceedings of the international conference ‘Innovations in Organic Food System for Sustainable Production and Enhanced Ecosystem Services’. The proceedings are a compilation of peer-reviewed articles based on presentations of 18 speakers invited conference speakers and published as a Special Issue of the scientific journal ‘Sustainable Agriculture Research’ by the Canadian Centre of Science and Education.
The creative process that leads to farmers’ innovations is rarely studied or described precisely in agricultural sciences. For academic scientists, obvious limitations of farmers’ experiments are e.g. precision, reliability, robustness, accuracy, validity or the correct analysis of cause and effect. Nevertheless, we propose that ‘farmers’ experiments’ underpin innovations that keep organic farming locally tuned for sustainability and adaptable to changing economic, social and ecological conditions.
Farmers’ experiments can be defined as the autonomous activities of farmers to try or introduce something new at the farm, and include evaluation of success or failure with farmers’ own methods. Experiments enable farmers to adapt their farms to changing circumstances, build up local knowledge, and have resulted in countless agricultural innovations. Most research on the topic has been conducted in countries of the south.
Organic farming is recognized as one source for innovation helping agriculture to develop sustainably. However, the understanding of innovation in agriculture is characterized by technical optimism, relying mainly on new inputs and technologies originating from research. The paper uses the alternative framework of innovation systems describing innovation as the outcome of stakeholder interaction and examples from the SOLID (Sustainable Organic Low-Input Dairying) project to discuss the role of farmers, researchers and knowledge exchange for innovation.
This is the third volume of the proceedings of the national conference on "Water for Food and Environment", which was held from June 9 -11, 2009 at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall (BMICH). The volumes 1 and 2 have been produced as separate documents of this report series. In response to a call for abstracts, 81 abstracts were received from government institutes dealing with water resources and agriculture development, universities, other freelance researchers and researchers from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI).
The devastation caused in Philippines by Typhoon Reming was the trigger for the Government request to FAO for the project “Strengthening Capacities for Climate Risk Management and Disaster Preparedness in Selected Provinces of the Philippines (Bicol Region)”. This technical project summary report provides a consolidated overview about the specific project activities, the implementation processes, main findings and the establishment of institutional mechanisms that were established to promote ongoing collaboration between farmers, agriculture extension workers, researchers and local governme
The Philippines is one of the most disaster-prone countries worldwide. Bicol Region is regularly exposed to a variety of natural hazards including tropical storms, typhoons, droughts, drought spells, flash floods, floods, landslides and volcano eruptions, causing frequent destruction, damage and losses. Agriculture is among the most vulnerable sectors to extreme weather events and changing climate. People depending on agriculture are regularly facing the challenge to protect and maintain their livelihoods.
Natural hazards have become more frequent and intense in the last few decades, increasing the often significant negative impacts on the gross domestic product of countries in southern Africa and undermining development efforts. Forecasts are negative as a result of climate change, which is increasingly linked to more frequent and severe weather patterns that are expected to have a dramatic impact on these countries‘ economies and environments.
This brief is part of the series, A Field Guide for Disaster Risk Reduction in Southern Africa: Key Practices for DRR Implementers, coordinated by the FAO Subregional Office for Disaster Risk Reduction/Management for Southern Africa. The objective of this technical brief is to provide concise and clear descriptions of the key aspects for the promotion of quality seed of appropriate varieties for use by small-scale farmers, in the context of the disaster risk reduction/management (DRR/M) activities in the southern African region.
This brief is part of the series, A Field Guide for Disaster Risk Reduction in Southern Africa: Key Practices for DRR Implementers, coordinated by the FAO Subregional Office for Disaster Risk Reduction/Management for Southern Africa. The brief provides practical guidelines on storage practices and methodologies to assist southern African farmers prone to natural hazards, mainly cyclones, droughts and floods.