Developing irrigation technology for a diversity of farmers with rapidly changing demands can be hard for designers, especially when the technology concerns smallholders in developing countries. Innovation networks supporting the adopted technology increasingly include both globalised players and very local actors, making innovation intermediaries capable of translating innovation issues for different actors increasingly indispensable. The aim of this study was to analyse the two-way process of technology translation between international manufacturers and smallholders and to characterise the power struggle between different actors in a farmer-led drip irrigation innovation process. The study was carried out in Biskra, a growing production basin for early greenhouse vegetables in the Algerian Sahara. We conducted 42 interviews with farmers and 42 interviews with other actors involved in the innovation process
This paper draws lessons from selected country experiences of adaptation and innovation in pursuit of food security goals. It reviews three cases of systems of innovation operating in contrasting regional, socio-economic and agro-ecological contexts, in terms of four features of...
CABI’s Plantwise programme runs local plant clinics in 24 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America where trained ‘plant doctors’ provide on-the-spot diagnosis and advice for farmers who bring samples to the clinics. A database that records each consultation and...
This study introduces a framework for managing information flow in innovation systems. An organisation's capacity to receive information, to share it with others and to learn from it is assumed to be the key factor that shapes the flow patterns and, hence,...
The Tanga Dairy Platform, created in 2008, is an informal forum of different stakeholders involved in the dairy industry of Tanzania’s Northeastern Tanga region. The platform’s objective is to exchange knowledge and develop joint actions to common problems. Six years...
Des réformes institutionnelles ont autorisé la liberté d’association dans les pays du Maghreb. L’émergence et/ou l’essor d’un réseau ramifié d’organisations offertes par ces nouvelles politiques de développement rural ont multiplié les possibilités d’action autonome des acteurs sociaux dans la vie...
