This paper aims to analyze the role of newcomer farmers on farming system innovations. It is based on a two-months long field work in Southern Portugal’s Alentejo region. The analysis of 27 interviews with farmers and members of agricultural organizations reveals neo-farmers’ contribution to farming system innovations at three scales: the farm scale, the scale of professional networks, and the territorial scale.
The aim of this study was to explore the interactions that exist among agricultural stakeholders in the southwestern highlands of Uganda as a way of identifying opportunities and gaps for operation of Innovation Platforms (IPs) under the proof of concept of Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) research project.
The aim of this survey is to identify and characterize new products in plant biotechnology since 2015, especially in relation to the advent of New Breeding Techniques (NBTs) such as gene editing based on the CRISPR-Cas system. Transgenic (gene transfer or gene silencing) and gene edited traits which are approved or marketed in at least one country, or which have a non-regulated status in the USA, are collected, as well as related patents worldwide. In addition, to shed light on potential innovation for Africa, field trials on the continent are examined.
The shift to industrial agriculture in Europe brought along a range of environmental and social externalities. This led policy makers, researchers and civil servants to consider and explore the potential of diversified farming systems (DFS) to address current problems in agriculture. However, because of multiple obstacles adoption of these DFS by farmers is not obvious. In this study we investigate the case of agroforestry (AF) systems in Flanders, where a government incentive scheme initiated in 2011, did not lead to the expected uptake of AF systems by farmers.
To keep yield advances, farmers in Mato Grosso (MT) have been adopting several technological innovations. Therefore, agricultural production systems in MT have become complex and dynamic since farmers have to consider the increase of decision variables when planning and implementing their farming practices. These variables are widely spread across many distinct topics, bringing them together and summarizing information from diverse fields of research has become a difficult task in farmers’ decision-making process.
Despite its vast agriculture potential, Africa is increasingly dependent on food imports from the rest of the world to satisfy its consumption needs. Food output has not kept pace with population growth, and more than 80 percent of production gains since 1980 have come from the expansion of cropped areas rather than from greater productivity of areas already cultivated. This paper looks at the current requirements for seed trade in Africa, the obstacles, status of ongoing plans for regional harmonization, challenges of harmonization, and opportunities for near-term improvement.
In this review, we examine the debate surrounding the role for organic agriculture in future food production systems. Typically represented as a binary organic–conventional question, this debate perpetuates an either/or mentality. We question this framing and examine the pitfalls of organic–conventional cropping systems comparisons. The review assesses current knowledge about how these cropping systems compare across a range of metrics related to four sustainability goals: productivity, environmental health, economic viability, and quality of life.
Scaling is a ubiquitous concept in agricultural research in the global south as donors require their research grantees to prove that their results can be scaled to impact upon the livelihoods of a large number of beneficiaries. Recent studies on scaling have brought critical perspectives to the rather technocratic tendencies in the agricultural innovations scaling literature.
This report is the result of a World Bank mission that visited Paraguay in June 2013 at the request of the Government of Paraguay. The mission’s objective was to identify, quantify, and prioritize agriculture risks that determine the volatility of agriculture gross domestic product (GDP), based on a methodology to assess sector risks developed by the World Bank. The methodology stipulates a two-phase process.
This report is comprised of two volumes: (i) volume one: risk assessment; and (ii) volume two: risk management strategy. Volume one continues with chapter one, which characterizes the recent performance of the agriculture sector, including agro-climatic and market conditions. It also identifies the productive systems used for this analysis. Chapter two describes the main risks in the agricultural sector, capturing market, production, and enabling environment risks along the value chains involved in the selected productive system typologies.