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 paper compares lessons learned from nine studies that explored institutional determinants of innovation towards sustainable intensification of West African agriculture. The studies investigated issues relating to crop, animal, and resources management in Benin, Ghana, and Mali.The studies showed that political ambitions to foster institutional change were often high (restoring the Beninese cotton sector and protecting Ghanaian farmers against fluctuating cocoa prices) and that the institutional change achieved was often remarkable.
This study, supported by the Challenge Program Water and Food (CPWF-Project 35), demonstrates the case of multiple-use of water through seasonal aquaculture interventions for improved rice–fish production systems in the Bangladesh floodplains. The project focused on community-based fish culture initiatives, increasingly adopted in the agro-ecological zones of the major floodplains of the Padma, Testa, and Brahmaputra basin.
Recent discourse in the field of participatory agricultural research has focused on how to blend vari- ous forms and intensities of stakeholder participation with quality agricultural science, moving beyond the simple ‘‘farmer-first’’ ideology of the 1980s and early 1990s.
Multi-stakeholder partnerships network which is typified by the FARA-led Integrated Agriculture Research for Development (IAR4D) of the SSA-Challenge Program is an innovation platform (IP) composed of stakeholders bound together by their individual interests in a shared commodity or outcome. The result from such innovation platforms is largely influenced by the strength of the network. In this paper, similarities within and across platforms are assessed using the simple matching procedure. Results indicate consistency in conduct of Innovation Platform activities.
The role of civil society in influencing public opinion towards more democratic and developmental approaches is now well-recognised in diverse fields such as health, education, livelihoods, issues relating to disadvantaged social groups and the environment. Yet, science and technology in India is predominantly seen as the preserve of the state, and more recently the market. In the linear model of innovation, civil society is seen at best as having a role in extension or the delivery of technology produced elsewhere.
The increasing complexity of technology development and adoption is rapidly changing the effectiveness of scientific and technological policies. Complex technologies are developed and disseminated by networks of agents. The impact of these networks depends on the assets they command, their learning routines, the socio-economic environment in which they operate and their history.
This research refers to the application of a innovation framework to sustainable livestock development research projects in Africa and Asia. The focus of these projects ranged from pastoral systems to poverty and ecosystems services mapping to market access by the poor to fodder and natural resource management to livestock parasite drug resistance.