Este libro recoge los principales aportes y contribuciones a las innovaciones rurales. Los trabajos proceden de una decena de países diferentes, y presentan diversos acercamientos teóricos y prácticos. La multiplicidad de casos analizados es una muestra de la creciente riqueza conceptual y analítica sobre el desarrollo rural en nuestro continente, a la vez que ponen en cuestión muchos de los paradigmas imperantes. El objetivo es aportar a una discusión que actualmente está abierta y que debe permitir el avance en el diseño de estrategias de desarrollo más sólidas y consistentes

Innovation is often presented as one of the main catalysts for more sustainable and inclusive development. In the agricultural and food sectors, innovation is characterized not only by specificities arising from its relationship to nature, but also from the wide diversity of its stakeholders, ranging from farmers to consumers, and including intermediaries such as the research community and advisory services. Innovation emerges from interactions between these actors, who mobilize resources and produce knowledge in collaborative mechanisms in orderto generate changes.

This article examines how research on the agriculture and agrifood systems mobilizes the concept of Innovation System (IS). A literature review on the IS provides an analytical framework for determining its theoretical frame of reference, its area of application and its uses.