Innovation is high on the agenda, in view of the deep economic crisis and the challenges of feeding 9 billion people in 2050 in a more sustainable way. For an effective and efficient response the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (Akis) needs to innovate itself and adopt new ways of working.

The study relies on the activities performed within EU funded Horizon 2020 project, AgriSpin (www.agrispin.eu), specifically for the case of Cilento Bio-district in Campania region, Italy. The methodology is centred on the “cross-visit method” developed within the AgriSpin Project, based on direct observation, interviews with relevant actors and analysis of grey literature.

This paper aims to analyze the role of newcomer farmers on farming system innovations. It is based on a two-months long field work in Southern Portugal’s Alentejo region. The analysis of 27 interviews with farmers and members of agricultural organizations reveals neo-farmers’ contribution to farming system innovations at three scales: the farm scale, the scale of professional networks, and the territorial scale.

In this paper,  presented at the 12th European IFSA Symposium (Workshop: "Generating spaces for innovation in agricultural and rural development") in 2016, the authors assess the integration of new entrants to small-scale farming into agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (AKIS), in four study sites located on Europe’s periphery (Bulgaria, Poland, Portugal, and the United Kingdom).

The private sector’s presence in agricultural advisory services worldwide has been on the increase for over three decades. This trend has also been observed in the Mantaro Valley (Peru), in a context of dairy family farming. The objective of the communication is to analyse the modalities of advisory services privatization and assess the consequences of this privatization for the farmers and their livestock systems. Data were collected through input suppliers, different types of advisers and producers interviews.

It is adressed in this paper opportunities of Q Methodology for empirical agricultural innovation studies. In the systems perspective on innovation, multi-actor innovation networks are seen as a key strategy to successful innovation. Given the several types of actors involved, the scientific and policy literature points at the need for ‘innovation brokers’ to build capacity for collective innovation and prevent innovation network failures.

The Establishment of the Rahad Scheme in Eastern Sudan in the 1970s established an agricultural innovation system where formal actors such as extension, research, finance institutions and informal actors such as agro pastoral organizations are networking to provide better livelihoods within the irrigated scheme area. This investigation focuses on the roles and interactions of agro pastoral organizations and finance institutions in relation to extension work in Rahad Scheme.

Dairy farmers in the northern regions of New Zealand expressed widespread dissatisfaction with the performance and persistence of their pastures following drought conditions in 2007/08. Farmers were becoming disillusioned with the practice of renewing pasture as a means to introduce modern perennial ryegrass cultivars in their paddocks. This paper describes the formation and operation of an innovation network, consisting of private and public sector actors, that was formed in 2010 to improve the quality and consistency of advice provided to farmers.

While privatization of extension has received considerable attention with respect to implications for public and private good, less consideration has been given to structural and relational implications for knowledge sharing.

This paper, presented at the 12th European IFSA Symposium (Workshop: "Generating spaces for innovation in agricultural and rural development") in 2016, aims to summarise the main features of the AgriSpin project. The project is being financed by the Horizon 2020 research program of the European Commission aiming at contributing to system-oriented innovation research in agriculture and as complementary to the policy instrument EIP AGRI. The idea behind EIP AGRI is that innovation emerges from interaction between stakeholders.