Well-designed and supported innovation niches may facilitate transitions towards sustainable agricultural futures, which may follow different approaches and paradigms such as agroecology, local place-based food systems, vertical farming, bioeconomy, urban agriculture, and smart farming or digital farming. In this paper we consider how the existing agricultural innovation systems (AIS) approach might be opened up to better support the creation of innovation niches. We engage with Innovation Ecosystems thinking to consider the ways in which it might enhance efforts to create multi-actor, cross-sectoral innovation niches that are capable of supporting transitions to sustainable agricultural systems across multiple scales. While sharing many similarities with AIS thinking, Innovation Ecosystems thinking has the potential to broaden AIS by: emphasizing the role of power in shaping directionality in innovation platforms or innovation communities that are connected to niches and their interaction with regimes; highlighting the plurality of actors and actants and the integral role of ecological actants in innovation; and offering an umbrella concept through which to cross scalar and paradigmatic or sector boundaries in order to engage with a variety of innovation systems affecting multifunctional agricultural landscapes and systems. To this end, an Agricultural Innovation Ecosystems approach may help design and support development of transboundary, inter-sectoral innovation niches that can realize more collective and integrated innovation in support of sustainability transitions, and help enact mission oriented agricultural innovation policy.
La FAO a adopté une approche multidimensionnelle pour aider les exploitants familiaux pauvres à faire face aux difficultés qu’ils rencontrent au quotidien et renforcer leur capacité de création de revenus, afin de réduire la pauvreté rurale. La FAO aide les...
Les agricultures familiales constituent la très grande majorité des agricultures du monde, la première source d’emploi en milieu rural et le premier fournisseur de biens alimentaires. Elles sont à l’honneur sur la scène internationale avec la proclamation par l’Organisation des...
The nature of the issues around which Agricultural Research for Development (ARD) partnerships are formed requires a different way of conceptualizing and thinking to that commonly found in many agricultural professionals. This brief clarifies the components of a system of...
Les notions de services environnementaux et de services écosystémiques (SE) ont connu un rapide engouement au cours de la dernière décennie et sont à l’origine de nouveaux instruments pour faire face à divers problèmes environnementaux, notamment la déforestation : les...
Esta Política de Estado se sustenta en cuatro ejes temáticos, que hemos convenido en llamar los pilares de la política: a) competitividad; b) innovación y desarrollo tecnológico; c) gestión de los territorios rurales y agricultura familiar; y d) cambio climático...