Local innovation refers to the dynamics of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) - the knowledge that grows within a social group, incorporating learning from own experience over generations but also knowledge gained from other sources and fully internalized within local ways of thinking and doing. Local innovation is the process through which individuals or groups discover or develop new and better ways of managing resources - building on and expanding the boundaries of their IK.

-

The authors surveyed small-scale farmers in the Kenyan Rift Valley province (Narok and Nakuru districts) to describe constraints to, and changes in, livestock production and to assess the extent to which farmers have adopted new technologies promoted by extension services. In the arid areas of southern Narok, farmer's main constraints were drought and disease. Farmers in Nakuru district, situated in the fertile highlands of the Rift Valley, were also affected by disease but also lacked markets and capital.

The poster was prepared for Tropentag 2012: Resilience of Agricultural Systems against Crises, Gottingen, Germany, 19-21 September 2012. It briefed the objective, approaches, achievements and lessons of the Improving Productivity and Market Success (IPMS) project.

Ethiopian needs to achieve accelerated agricultural development along a sustainable commercialization path to alleviate poverty and ensure overall national development. In this regard, sustainable commercial of smallholder dairying provides a viable and growing opportunity; with deliberate, appropriate and sustained policy support. A recent empirical analysis concludes however, that Ethiopian smallholder dairy sub-sector has not been able to take-off despite decades of development interventions.

There is plenty of information available in the public domain that covers various aspects of extension and know-how about new methodologies for implementation. However this information is often scattered and presented in complex academic language. Hence practitioners, who often have very limited time and/or may only have basic formal education, find it difficult to make use of this information. The Global Good Practices Initiative aims to bridge this gap by providing information about extension approaches and methods in easy-to-understand formats.

This book discusses innovation problems and opportunities for family farming in the different regions of the American continent, as well as the role of hemispheric, regional and national agrifood research systems. Likewise, it provides a description of the main innovation actions and projects promoted by IICA, and the main success cases over recent years.