Little is known about effective ways to operationalize agricultural innovation processes. The authors of this article use the MasAgro program in Mexico (which aims to increase maize and wheat productivity, profitability and sustainability), and the experiences of middle level ‘hub managers’, to understand how innovation processes occur in heterogeneous and changing contexts. Their research shows how a program, that initially had a relatively narrow technology focus, evolved towards an innovation system approach.

In this paper, a novel method to collect symptoms of the disease, as observed by the farmers, using a mobile phone application has been presented. A cumulative composite risk index (CCRI) obtained from more than one existing disease forecast models is validated from the actual late blight queries received from the farmers. The main contribution of the paper is a protocol that combines the symptoms based diagnostic approach along with the plant disease forecasting models resulting in detection of Potato late blight with higher accuracy.

The aim of this study was to identify the actors involved in the innovation system producers of corn Mexico Center Region, highlighting the role of the actors of institutional support in adoption of innovations. To do this, 490 corn producers served within the framework of MasAgro 2012 program, in the states of Guerrero, Hidalgo, Puebla, Morelos, State of Mexico and Tlaxcala were interviewed. The degree of adoption of innovations was measured, and using the methodology of social network analysis linking between actors analyzed.