The slow rate of agricultural development in Africa can largely be blamed on lack of functional relationships between technology/innovation generation centers, local farming communities, financial institutions and markets. The result has been low penetration of promising innovations/technologies thus, low adoption levels and/ or partial adoption; and limited or no access to markets and financial services by farmers. In general, most of the innovation/technologies developed have not been extensively out-scaled; some of which are not even packaged in user friendly formats. The Forum for Sustainable Agriculture in Africa (FOSAA) believes that scientific and/or technological innovations have a greater chance of going to scale and achieving global impact if they are developed from the onset with appropriate social and business innovations—an approach that we call integrated growth. Therefore, FOSAA intends to establish and manage innovation/technology incubation centers in collaboration with knowledge institutions (Universities/ colleges; research institutions; farmer organisations and the private sector) as a mechanism for enhancing agricultural intensification. To emphasise the requisite business innovation, FOSSA will liaise with other stakeholders to reduce agricultural production and price risks caused by climatic changes (weather index insurers) and market distortions (guarantee schemes), respectively. Further, these incubation centers will also act as agribusiness training/resource centers where a multi-structured programme that includes farm enterprise selection, resource mobilisation and utilisation, routine market assessment and business negotiation skills, record keeping and financial management, risk prediction and management, value addition, carbon foot- printing and team building will be managed.
This report provides a synthesis of all findings and information generated through a “stocktaking” process that involved a desk study of Prolinnova documents and evaluation reports, a questionnaire to 40 staff members of international organizations in agricultural research and development (ARD),...
2015 a été une année marquante pour l’avenir de la planète et donc pour l’avenir de chaque femme, chaque homme, chaque enfant, fille ou garçon, aux quatre coins du monde. Deux événements importants – le Sommet des Nations Unies sur...
Cette publication offre de nombreux exemples concrets détaillant différentes manières de réengager les jeunes dans le secteur agricole. Elle montre à quel point des programmes éducationnels sur mesure peuvent offrir aux jeunes les compétences et la perspicacité nécessaires pour se...
Over the years, CTA has contributed to building ACP capacity to understand innovation processes, strengthen the agricultural innovation system and embed innovation thinking in agricultural and rural development strategies. The CTA Top 20 Innovations project set out to prove that...
How can education and training contribute to Africa’s agricultural growth potential? This paper examines the role of education to increased agricultural productivity and the key areas in which education and training policies, reforms, programmes and investments combine to set Africa...