This study reports on the contribution of farmer– to-farmer video-mediated group learning to capital assets building of women in resource-poor households. Data were collected using structured interviews with 140 randomly selected women in 28 video villages and 40 women in four control villages in north-west Bangladesh. Video-mediated group learning enhanced women’s ability to apply and experiment with seed technologies. It also stimulated reciprocal sharing of new knowledge and skills between them, other farmers and service providers.

The authors aimed at knowing how different learning methods, such as video shows and workshops, change farmers’ knowledge, attitudes and practices about botanical pesticides. This paper explains how video engages men and women farmers in spreading botanical pesticides across 12 villages in Bogra District, north-western Bangladesh.The authors conducted ex ante and ex post surveys among farmers from November 2009 to September 2010. For data analysis, the authors used t-test and McNemer and Wilcoxon sign rank tests.

In this paper, findings suggest that the uptake of social media is still in an early, exploratory phase associated with modest opportunities and relevant limitations of Web 2.0 mediated multi-stakeholder collaboration. Notably, there are gaps in giving and receiving feedback which are intrinsic to dyadic communication as well as innovation processes.

The Centre for Development Research (CDR), in collaboration with local partnership managed by the Bangladesh Agricultural University worked to establish a platform (i.e. a participatory rural video centre) that acts upon fostering rural women’s capacity for agricultural innovation in the north-west and north-east region of Bangladesh. In this paper, the authors elaborate principles of establishing the centre, and some evidences on Farmers’ Participatory Research (FPR) in the community.

In Bangladesh, strengthening agricultural innovation calls for facilitation of interactive communication and a wide range of mediation tasks within (and between) stakeholders operating in different social spheres. This paper examines how a public-sector agricultural extension agency has attempted to change its roles in implementing a major agricultural extension project in order to strengthen agricultural innovation.

Recent experiences in participatory video-making raise the question of how best to use this medium for enhancing local seed innovation systems. Embedded in a mini-process of participatory action research, two styles of participatory video—scripted and scriptless—were tested and assessed together with farmers and facilitators in Bogra District, Bangladesh.

The first phase in the development of the Common Framework on Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovation systems (CD for AIS) consisted of the review of the existing literature, building up a repository of relevant documentation on agricultural innovation in general and AIS and CD for AIS. This report summarizes this first phase. In particular, Section 1 covers this brief introduction. Sections two and three focus on the review of relevant literature, presenting the methodology used and the structure of the repository itself.

Developing regions' food system has transformed rapidly in the past several decades. The food system is the dendritic cluster of R&D value chains, and the value chains linking input suppliers to farmers, and farmers upstream to wholesalers and processors midstream, to retailers then consumers downstream. This study analyze the transformation in terms of these value chains' structure and conduct, and the effects of changes in those on its performance in terms of impacts on consumers and farmers, as well as the efficiency of and waste in the overall chain.

ecause the climate has been rapidly changing and undermining the sustainability of the agriculture sector, Agricultural Extension and Rural Advisory Services (AERAS) need to rethink their contemporary roles and initiatives. Although enhancing agricultural innovation is considered a key process to increase farm income and ensure sustainability under complex climate-affected development conditions, little is known how AERAS can support the process in the said context. A broad range of literature was reviewed and a deductive coding approach was followed to analyze the literature.

The efforts to adapt to climate change in developing countries are in their infancy, and hopefully CSA will be a major contributor to these efforts. But CSA itself is evolving, and there is a growing need to refine and adapt it to the changing realities. This section of the book focus on the implications of the empirical findings for devising effective strategies and policies to support resilience and the implications for agriculture and climate change policy at national, regional and international levels.