What are key characteristics of rural innovators? How are their experiences similar for women and men, and how are they different? To examine these questions, this study draw on individual interviews with 336 rural women and men known in their communities for trying out new things in agriculture. The data form part of 84 GENNOVATE community case studies from 19 countries. Building on study participants’ own reflections and experiences with innovation in their agricultural livelihoods, we combine variable-oriented analysis and analysis of specific individuals’ lived experience.
A central concern about achieving global food security is reconfiguring agri-food systems towards sustainability. However, historically-informed trajectories of agri-food system development remain resistant to a change in direction. Through a systematic literature review, the authors identify three research domains exploring this phenomenon and six explanations of resistance: embedded nature of technologies, misaligned institutional settings, individual attitudes, political economy factors, infrastructural rigidities, research and innovation priorities.
The number of theories of innovation systems has grown considerably over the past two decades and several innovation system approaches have been developed. The focus of most has been on the development of technological innovations which create economic value.However, addressing macro-level societal problems – sociotechnical and environmental challengesin which the production, dissemination and use of social and technical knowledge and technology can potentially resolve the problem – has been overlooked.
Given its superior importance of digital agricultural solutions to overcome challenges in agricultural activities, many of the solutions are in face of challenges to scale in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).
In this study the farmers were first asked to answer two sets of statements related to views on climate change and experiences on changes so far in their own farm or nearby locations.
Xanthomonas Wilt of Banana (BXW) is a complex problem in the African Great Lakes Region that is affecting the livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers. Since the first disease reports from Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2001, BXW has been studied widely. The majority of these studies focus on the technological or biophysical dimensions, while aspects and influence of socio-cultural, economic and institutional dimensions only recently started to gain attention.