Sustainable intensification of smallholder farming is a serious option for satisfying 2050 global cereal requirements and alleviating persistent poverty. That option seems far off for Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) where technology-driven productivity growth has largely failed. The article revisits this issue from a number of angles: current approaches to enlisting SSA smallholders in agricultural development; the history of the phenomenal productivity growth in the USA, The Netherlands and Green Revolution Asia; and the current framework conditions for SSA productivity growth.

This paper examines the role of postsecondary agricultural education and training (AET) in sub-Saharan Africa in the context of the region’s agricultural innovation systems. Specifically, the paper looks at how AET in sub-Saharan Africa can contribute to agricultural development by strengthening innovative capacity, or the ability of individuals and organisations to introduce new products and processes that are socially or economically relevant, particularly with respect to smallholder farmers who represent the largest group of agricultural producers in the region.

Situate within new institutionalism literature, this paper builds a complex system model of institutional analysis for adaptive governance. This model combines Young’s institutional environmental analysis method, elements of subsequent environmental governance projects models, and ideas of multiple institutional levels and drivers. By applying the model, policy instruments are identified that build agricultural producer livelihoods improving their adaptive capacity to respond to climate change and drought.

This paper presents and discusses a diagnostic framework to identify institutional processes in the creation of public-private partnerships (PPPs) for agricultural innovation. The diagnostic framework proposed here combines a conceptualisation of institutions with a conceptualisation of technology. We argue that a performative notion of institutions provides a better tool for institutional diagnostics than the common understanding of institutions as ‘rules of the game’.

Diversity field school (DFS) is a community-based action designed to create a platform for learning and sharing of crop diversity related knowledge and information. DFS places an emphasis on agency, participation, and empowerment, and seeks to develop both the knowledge base and leadership potential of local farmers. It adopts the models of farmers’ field school and community based management through a lens of crop genetic diversity.

Social media (SM) such as Twitter and Facebook are new communication tools for rural communities, and SM has enabled the creation of rural social networks. Increased use by farmers of 'mobile digital devices' and better rural access to broadband services have enhanced so that SM is being used to support farming decisions. However, in depth studies on how SM is used for knowledge sharing amongst farmers and the role of rural professionals (e.g. advisors) in this space is an emergent field with limited literature.

This report finds ground for a temperate optimism regarding the future role of smallholder agriculture in helping Asian countries delivering on Agenda 2030. Growth rates of the region’s major economies remain buoyant. Notwithstanding the risks associated with a new global crisis or originating from the instability of financial markets, economic growth is expected to remain strong in the decade to come.

This presentation was given for the SEARCA Forum-workshop on Platforms, Rural Advisory Services, and Knowledge Management: Towards Inclusive and Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development, Los Banos, 17-19 May 2016. It briefed innovation, innovation systems and multistakeholder processes (innovation platforms and learning alliances).

This 2016 report provides an economic overview of the Canadian agriculture and agri-food system using the most recent data available. It is meant to be a multi-purpose reference document that presents: • the agriculture and agri-food system in the context of the Canadian economy and international markets; and, • a snapshot of the composition and performance of the agriculture and agri-food system as it evolves in response to challenges, opportunities and market developments. The report begins with a special feature section on natural resource use and the environment.