Modern agriculture and food production systems are facingincreasing pressures from climate change, land and wateravailability, and, more recently, a pandemic. These factors arethreatening the environmental and economic sustainability ofcurrent and future food supply systems. Scientific andtechnological innovations are needed more than ever to secureenough food for a fast-growing global population. Scientificadvances have led to a better understanding of how variouscomponents of the agricultural system interact, from the cell tothe field level.

Competing models of innovation informing agricultural extension, such as transfer of technology, participatory extension and technology development, and innovation systems have been proposed over the last decades. These approaches are often presented as antagonistic or even mutually exclusive. This article shows how practitioners in a rural innovation system draw on different aspects of all three models, while creating a distinct local practice and discourse. We revisit and deepen the critique of Vietnam’s “model” approach to upland rural development, voiced a decade ago in this journal.

The concept of an innovation platform is increasingly used in interventions inspired by agricultural innovation systems thinking, as a way of bringing stakeholders from a sector together to enable transformative change. An essential role on such innovation platforms is thought to be that of the ‘innovation champion’, but this role has so far not been unravelled.

This is one of a series of training modules developed following several workshops on agricultural innovation systems (AIS) and value chains development (VCD) organized for principle investigators of ASARECA’s programs in 2010 and 2011. The modules were compiled to assist in facilitating similar training that participant trainees may organize. The principle behind teaching and presenting the two concepts of innovation systems and VCD is based on the fact that they are strongly related, and there is opportunity for thinking and applying the two together in most agricultural programs.

The Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA) was established in the year 1963 by former President Dr. Cheddi Jagan. It became a state corporation in 1964 offering the Diploma in Agriculture and the Certificate in Agriculture Programmes, and graduated the first batch of 15 students in 1966. Agricultural diversification has become an important mechanism for economic growth by providing opportunities that facilitate technological advancement and demand driven government policy.

How we eat has a major impact on our individual health status, our quality of life and our well-being. Many of the foods we eat have a major social, environmental, climate and animal welfare footprint. This expertise defines policies to promote sustainability in food consumption as policies that integrate all four target dimensions: human health, social aspects, the natural environment (including climate) and animal welfare. Achieving greater sustainability in food consumption poses great challenges.

With support from The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA), through a call for proposal, Hello Tractor an agriculture technology social enterprise has been selected to implement ICT-enabled smallholder mechanisation services with the objective to create jobs for youth across Nigeria and Kenya over a one-year period. Hello Tractor has a bold vision to create sustainable value for tractor owners and to radically transform how the smallholder agricultural ecosystem interacts with and derives value from technology.