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.
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.
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.
Multi-stakeholder (MS) platforms, such as innovation platforms (IP), public-private partnerships (PPP) are becoming more common but what they can achieve in innovation and scaling is limited and depends on different factors. This poster and the broader research paper provide evidence what MS platforms can and cannot achieve in their early phases and give insights about effectiveness and efficiency of Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) interventions such as CGIAR research programs (CRPs) in low and middle income countries.
The capacity of existing monitoring and decision making tools in generating evidence about the performance of R4D with multi-stakeholder processes, such as innovation platforms (IPs), public private partnerships (PPP), participatory value chain management (PVCM) is very limited. Results of these tools are either contextual and qualitative such as case studies that can not be used by other R4D interventions or quantitative i.e. impact assessments that do not inform what works in R4D.
Capacity development (CapDev) has been identified in CGIAR’s Strategy and Results Framework as a strategic enabler of impact for CGIAR and its partners, particularly through building and sustaining capacity of national partners and beneficiaries.
Capacity development (CapDev) is increasingly acknowledged as a crucial part of agricultural development. In the CGIAR Strategic Results Framework (SRF), CapDev is included as a ‘cross-cutting issue’ and as a strategic enabler of Research for Development (R4D) impact for CGIAR and its partners. It goes far beyond the transfer of knowledge and skills through training, and cuts across multiple levels.
This film describes the role of capacity development in accelerating adoption of new technologies and innovations in the CGIAR Research Program on Integrated Systems for the Humid Tropics.
This case study zooms in on multi-stakeholder processes in the East and Central Africa (ECA) Action Area or Flagship that were launched on 20 May 2013 in Bukavu, DR Congo. The ECA Flagship encom-passes the Rwanda, DR Congo, Burundi, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia Action Sites. More specifically, the case study describes and reflects upon the first two years of CGIAR Humidtropics in DR Congo. aiming to outline the multi-stakeholder process as it unfolded and highlight lessons that can be learned from this.