This chapter describes the Swiss agricultural innovation system (AIS). It identifies the actors in agricultural innovation and their roles, describes the main trends in public investments in agricultural research and development (R&D), discusses the impact of agricultural policies on AIS, and describes initiatives to foster agri-food innovation. It also depicts institutional co-ordination between regional innovation systems (RIS) and the Federal Office for Agriculture’s (FOAG) advisory services at the canton level.
This paper discusses innovation in low and middle-income countries, focusing on the role it has played in local and national responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the lessons from this effort for how innovation might be harnessed to address wider development and humanitarian challenges by mobilising resources, improving processes, catalysing collaboration and encouraging creative and contextually grounded approaches. The paper also examines how international development and humanitarian organisations can improve their support for local and national innovation efforts.
The SALSA project aims at assessing the current and future role of small farms and related small food businesses in contributing to sustainable food and nutrition security at regional level in Europe and in selected African regions, and to identify the conditions for them to meet the demand for food in an increasingly populated and resource-constrained world.
Mission-Oriented Innovation Policies (MOIPs) are one approach that can advance the required transformations. As our colleague Philippe Larrue noted in a 2021 paper, MOIPs are "a co-ordinated package of policy and regulatory measures tailored specifically to mobilise science, technology and innovation in order to address well-defined objectives related to a societal challenge, in a defined timeframe".
In the face of the climate emergency, around 140 countries, which emit close to 90% of the global greenhouse gas emissions, are planning to reduce their emissions to as close to zero as possible (known as net zero) in the upcoming decades. Around a third of these are low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), the countries most affected by climate change. So how can countries in the Global South achieve a socially-just transition? One key element is innovation, and potentially mission-oriented innovation.
This final Deliverable of SALSA's WP4 'Participatory foresight analysis' aims to make a reflection precisely about the participatory character of the activities undertaken and the outcomes obtained in this WP. Namely, the objective of this deliverable is twofold: (i) to assess the engagement of stakeholders in these participatory scenario planning activities, and (ii) to discuss the legitimacy of the scenario planning method adopted in this research. In total, the regional foresight workshops held as part of this WP involved 243 participants, with women representing 42%.
The aim of WP5 is to answer the question: What governs Small Farm and Small Food Business activities? The specific aim of this report (and the related task 5.1) is to identify and assess the forms of governance that influence, both positively and negatively, the contribution of small farms and small food businesses (SF/SFB) to Sustainable Food and Nutritional Security (FNS). In doing so, the work proceeds around the following objectives:
Agroecology and organ agriculture present promising alternatives to the current food system, supported by a growing body of evidence. Despite the potential of AE/O, their full benefits cannot be realised in most countries due to political and institutional barriers and lock-ins, including incentives and funding that favour "business as usual" food systems. Overcoming present and future challenges will require educated and empowered stakeholders to support AE/O agriculture in their fields.
Deliverable 5.3 is based on an internal report produced under Task 5.3 'Enabling governance frameworks' (UPV team), and Task 5.4 'Governance Framework analysis'. Task 5.3 provided further analysis of 3 governance forms that were identified in Deliverable 5.1. (The Governance of Small Farms and Small Food Businesses to support food and nutritional security) as most enabling small farms and small food business to contribute to food and nutrition security. These were: 1. Cooperative arrangements and associations; 2. State subsidies and financial assistance; and, 3.
In the context of the SALSA project, the overall aim of WP6 is to identify, develop and disseminate policy tools and other support mechanisms that are most appropriate for maintaining and enhancing the contribution of small farms to sustainable FNS in the European and African context (SALSA Objective 4).
The current deliverable (D6.1) is divided into two parts, each corresponding to one of its two main audiences, namely: