This report discusses general innovation issues and how they are affecting economic growth. It emphasizes how the advances in ICT, biotechnology and other fields of science are changing the innovation landscape and what are the implications for CD.

This report reviews recent trends in agricultural innovation systems (AIS) and discusses the impact of a wide range of policies on the creation and diffusion of innovation in the agricultural and agrifood sector. It suggests a framework for analysing the role of governments in fostering increased innovation, with a view to helping to identify practical actions that governments could take to improve productivity growth, sustainable use of resources, and resilience to future market developments in national and global agriculture and agri-food systems.

The Challenge of Capacity Development: Working Towards Good Practice draws on four decades of documented experience provided by both bilateral and multilateral donors, as well as academic specialists, to help policy makers and practitioners think through effective approaches to capacity development and what challenges remain in the drive to boost country capacity. The analysis is underpinned by a conceptual framework which guides practitioners to view capacity development at three interrelated levels: individual, organisational and enabling environment levels.

This conference proceedings from the OECD Conference on Agricultural Knowledge Systems (AKS), held in Paris, on 15-17 June 2011, discusses a large range of experiences and approaches to AKS  explores how to foster development and adoption of innovation to meet global food security and climate change challenges. The conference considered developments in institutional frameworks, public and private roles and partnerships, regulatory frameworks conducive to innovation, the adoption of innovations and technology transfers, and the responsiveness of AKS to broader policy objectives.

This chapter outlines the role of a well-functioning agricultural innovation system in ensuring good use of public funds, and higher responsiveness to the needs of ‘innovation consumers’ through improved collaboration between public and private participants, including across national borders. A well-functioning agricultural innovation system is key to improving the economic, environmental and social performance of the food and agriculture sector.

This chapter analyses the functioning of the Brazilian agricultural innovation system. It discusses the role of the different actors and describes governance mechanisms to define priorities and evaluate performance. It analyses trends in agricultural R&D expenditure and sources of funding, the role of intellectual property protection in fostering knowledge markets, and outlines mechanisms used to facilitate knowledge transfers, including collaboration at the national level and the adoption of innovation at the farm or firm level.

Mixed family farms produce almost half of the world food. Increasing food supply in developing countries requires increasing productivity of both land and farmers’ labour as key to increase household income, food security and reduce poverty. A research project developed into Uruguayan vegetable family farms (2006–2010) revealed that the main life quality problems were low family income, high work overload, lack of leisure time, and health problems associated with work. In many of these farms, labour productivity was lower than the opportunity cost of labour.

Ecological intensification has been proposed as a promising lever for a transition towards more sustainable food systems. Various food systems exist that are based on ecological intensification and may have potential for a sustainability transition. Little is known, however, about their diversity and about how they perform against dominant systems in terms of the multiple societal goals. The aim of this study is to contribute to knowledge about sustainability transitions in food systems through an empirical analysis of vegetable food systems in Chile.

In this paper it is reviewed the literature on how transitions to sustainable food systems may play out and present a framework based on the Multi-Level Perspective on Socio-Technical Transitions, which builds upon conceptual developments from social and natural science disciplines.

The publication reviews forty years of development experience and concludes that donors and partner countries alike have tended to look at capacity development as mainly a technical process, or as a transfer of knowledge or institutions from North to South.