Competing models of innovation informing agricultural extension, such as transfer of technology, participatory extension and technology development, and innovation systems have been proposed over the last decades. These approaches are often presented as antagonistic or even mutually exclusive. This article shows how practitioners in a rural innovation system draw on different aspects of all three models, while creating a distinct local practice and discourse. We revisit and deepen the critique of Vietnam’s “model” approach to upland rural development, voiced a decade ago in this journal.
The Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) is a direct, multi-dimensional measure of women's access to resources and decision-making in various domains of agriculture. However, several challenges characterize its use: adaptation of questionnaires to local agricultural contexts, modifications to index construction once underlying activities and adequacy thresholds are modified, and sensitivity analysis. In this paper, the authors address such challenges based on our experience of adapting and using the WEAI across 3600 households in India.
This study examined the trend in climate in Ghana, how smallholder horticultural farmers perceive this changing climate and how they are responding to its perceived effects. A survey of 480 resource-constrained horticultural producers was conducted in two municipalities of Ghana. Descriptive analysis and Weighted Average Index were employed to rank identified adaptation strategies and challenges. The results showed that farmers are already experiencing increasing temperature and declining rainfall patterns consistent with trends of observed climate changing in the last two decades.
This publication presents the results and lessons learned from the FAO-Sida supported pilot project “Strengthening capacity for climate change adaptation in land and water management” in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania. The project proposed an integrated package of approaches that addressed the drivers of vulnerability and targeted climate change impacts. It focused on technologies that improve soil health and facilitate water conservation, the diversification of the sources of livelihood and income, and the strengthening of local institutions.
The purpose of this article is to investigate effective reformism: strategies that innovation networks deploy to create changes in their environment in order to establish a more conducive context for the realization and durable embedding of their innovation projects. Using a case study approach, effective reformism efforts are analyzed in a technological innovation trajectory related to the implementation of a new poultry husbandry system and an organizational innovation trajectory concerning new ways of co-operation among individual farms to establish economies of scale.
In this paper, the authors review the conditions that have been undermining sustainable food and nutrition security in the Caribbean, focusing on issues of history, economy, and innovation. Building on this discussion, we then argue for a different approach to agricultural development in the Small Island Developing States of the CARICOM that draws primarily on socioecological resilience and agricultural innovation systems frameworks.
Innovation platforms are widely used in agricultural research to connect different stakeholders to achieve common goals. This brief deals with the gender dimension in innovation platform and is part of the series of ‘practice briefs’ intended to help guide agricultural research practitioners who seek to support and implement innovation platforms.
El objetivo general que orientó el trabajo fue analizar a la luz de las teorías las ciencias de la administración la situación empresarial de La Integradora de la Frontera Sur, S.A. de C.V., para generar propuestas concretas de acción que les permitan mejorar su gestión empresarial. Los objetivos particulares serían analizar formas para proponer estrategias concretas en el interés de contribuir a su mejora e incidir con actividades de capacitación.
La producción de miel en México es una actividad relevante del subsector pecuario, debido a la generación de empleos e ingresos en el sector agrícola, así como por su aporte de divisas. En el periodo de 2005 a 2015 la producción promedio anual fue de 58 mil toneladas, misma que fluctuó entre las 55 y 62 mil toneladas. Lo anterior ha ubicado a México como el octavo productor a nivel mundial y el tercer país exportador.
Con el fin de mejorar la eficiencia de la adopción de innovaciones tecnológicas en el cultivo de limón ‘Persa’ en San Pedro Tlapacoyan, Veracruz e incrementar el rendimiento de este frutal y la relación beneficio/costo (B/C) de esta actividad económica, se empleó la “metodología de innovación de la bitácora”, la cual se trabajó con 26 productores de esta comunidad durante tres ciclos de producción: 2005/2006, 2006/2007 y 2007/2008.