In this paper, it is reported the results of a case study of the Community Engagement (CE) strategies employed by the Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International (AH) to introduce tissue culture banana (TCB) agricultural practices to small-hold farmers in Kenya, and their impact on the uptake of the TCB, and on the nature of the relationship between AH and the relevant community of farmers and other stakeholders.
This chapter tries to establish a connection between the low level of innovation and inventions in Africa and the absence of indigenous knowledge in teaching, learning and research across the continent. It starts by exploring the fundamental tenets of innovation and proceeds to look at the relationship between innovation and indigenous knowledge.
The generation of innovations has traditionally been attributed to research organizations and the farmer’s own potential for the development of innovative solutions has largely been neglected. In this chapter, we explore the innovativeness of farmers in Upper East Ghana. To this end, we employ farmer innovation contests for the identification of local innovations. Awards such as motorcycles function as an incentive for farmers to share innovations and develop new practices.
People, places, and production contributing the least to climate change will suffer the most. This calls for adaptation as a key climate change response. But adaptation is surrounded by problems. Finance is uncertain and fragmented, mainstreaming into development is complicated, and technical solutions often overshadow existing social relations and institutions.
As many sub-Saharan African countries have committed to the continent-wide goals of the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) of the Africa Union and New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), policymakers are challenged with designing and implementing national agricultutal strategies and policies that will allow them to achieve these goals.
Providing food through schools has well documented effects in terms of the education, health and nutrition of school children. However, there is limited evidence in terms of the benefits of providing a reliable market for small-holder farmers through “home-grown” school feeding approaches. This study aims to evaluate the impact of school feeding programmes sourced from small-holder farmers on small-holder food security, as well as on school children’s education, health and nutrition in Mali.
A decline in public sector extension services in developing countries has led to an increasing emphasis on alternative extension approaches that are participatory, demand-driven, client-oriented, and farmer centered. One such approach is the volunteer farmer-trainer (VFT) approach, a form of farmer-to-farmer extension where VFTs host demonstration plots and share information on improved agricultural practices within their community. VFTs are trained by extension staff and they in turn train other farmers.
This paper asks: What have been the impacts of farmer- or community-led (informal) processes of research and development in agriculture and natural resource management in terms of food security, ecological sustainability, economic empowerment, gender relations, local capacity to innovate and influence on formal agricultural research and development institutions?
Research-based evidence on the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices is vital to their effective uptake, continued use and wider diffusion. In addition, an enabling policy environment at the national and regional levels is necessary for this evidence to be used effectively. This chapter analyzes a 4-year period of continuous policy engagement in East Africa in an attempt to understand the role of multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) in facilitating an enabling policy environment for climate change adaptation and mitigation.
In eastern Zambia, population growth has reduced per-capita land availability to such an extent that traditional bush fallows can no longer be practiced, and low soil fertility is a major constraint to crop production. Improved fallows (IF) based on leguminous trees are a low cash-input agroforestry practice to restore soil fertility. The objective of the study reported here was to assess the adoption of IF by farmers who tested the technology, including the extent to which the technology is practiced relative to its potential scale.