The universal application of the T&V model of agricultural extension in more than 50 countries is one of agricultural development’s best known failures. The approach worked well in places where it was originally developed, but proved inappropriate almost everywhere else. In this report Rasheed Sulaiman V. and Andy Hall worry that an apparently successful extension innovation piloted in India is set to suffer a similar fate.

In recent years the there has been an increasing recognition of the potential of the innovation systems concept to provide new ways of making more effective use of agricultural research and improve its impact on socially desirable outcomes. This paper documents the experiences of a group of researchers in India who experimented with this framework and tried to operationalise its principles in project design. The paper comments on some of the implications of using this approach and the challenges it presents for implementers of agricultural research projects in developing countries.

Globalization, urbanization and new market demands - together with ever-increasing quality and safety requirements - are putting significantly greater pressures on agrifood stakeholders in the world. The ability to respond to new challenges and opportunities is important not just for producers but also for industries in developing countries. This paper aims to present what "innovation response capacity" entails, especially for natural resourcebased industries in a developing country context.

There are divergent views on what capacity development might mean in relation to agricultural biotechnology. The core of this debate is whether this should involve the development of human capital and research infrastructure, or whether it should encompass a wider range of activities which also include developing the capacity to use knowledge productively. This paper uses the innovation systems concept to shed light on this discussion, arguing that it is innovation capacity rather than science and technology capacity that has to be developed.

To cope and compete in this rapidly-changing world, organisations need to access and apply new knowledge. While explicit knowledge is important, what is often critical is an organisation’s ability to create, access, share and apply the tacit or un-codified knowledge that exists among its members, its network and the wider innovation system of which it is a part. This discussion paper explores the role of tacit knowledge in livestock sector innovation capacity though the case of Visakha Dairy, one of the most progressive producer-owned milk marketing companies in India.

This paper was prepared to present at the Farmer First Revisited: 20 Years On conference at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK, December, 2007. Its focus is the challenge of strengthening agricultural innovation systems. The paper prefaces this discussion by reflecting on an apparent paradox. While agricultural innovation has never been better studied and understood, many of our ideas about innovation have failed to fundamentally change the institutional and policy setting of public and private investment intended to promote innovation for development.

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 brief provides practical guidelines on storage practices and methodologies to assist southern African farmers prone to natural hazards, mainly cyclones, droughts and floods.

This chapter documents the learning process within the framework of innovation of soil fertility management practices that emerged from the implementation of Participatory Extension Approach (PEA) as part of service delivery reorientation within the Limpopo Department of Agriculture in South Africa.The chapter gives a narrative description of what transpired during the interaction between researchers, extension officers and farmers, the processes involved, the lessons and the conclusion.

Following the remarkable success of performance testing in the commercial sector, the Agricultural Research Council's Animal Improvement Institute (ARC–AII) initiated a beef cattle performance testing scheme for smallholder farmers in 1996. The scheme, which became known as Kaonafatsho ya Dikgomo (Sotho for animal improvement), has been running well in the Northern and North West Provinces and is set to spread gradually to the rest of the country.