Precision Agriculture (PA) has been advocated as a promising technology and management philosophy that provides multidimensional benefits for producers and consumers while being environmentally friendly. In Europe, private stakeholders (farm advisors, farm equipment producers, decision support providers, farmers) and research institutions have been trying to develop, test and demonstrate adoption of precision agriculture solutions with governments financing big projects in these areas. Despite these efforts, adoption is still lagging behind expectations.
This article presents a different dimension of the innovation systems approach, going beyond analysis and shedding light on how these processes can be facilitated in practice. This is based on 20 years' experience with innovations systems. The focus is on the role of facilitation in triggering the changes, as well as in integrating learning and knowledge management (KM) in the innovation process.
During May 2010 the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) hosted two events related to knowledge management (KM): The Knowledge Share Fair for Latin America and the Caribbean, funded by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and a regional meeting of the Knowledge Management for Development (KM4Dev) community. The Fair was attended by 200 professionals from more than 70 organizations and 18 countries and showcased more than 40 experiences related to KM in agriculture, development and food security.
One option for practically applying innovation systems thinking involves the establishment of innovation platforms (IPs). Such platforms are designed to bring together a variety of different stakeholders to exchange knowledge and resources and take action to solve common problems. Yet relatively little is known about how IPs operate in practice, particularly how power dynamics influence platform processes.This paper focuses on a research-for-development project in the Ethiopian highlands which established three IPs for improved natural resource management.
This paper presents a case study of the work carried out by CIAT to facilitate the creation of a community of practice, using Dgroups and taking advantage of this virtual space to apply a qualitative monitoring technique called Most Significant Change. The experience reported here mixed key ingredients to create and facilitate a community of practice to facilitate knowledge sharing and communication flow among 14 learning and knowledge sharing centres in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Papa Andina began as a regional research program focusing on the Andean potato sectors of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, but later shifted its focus to facilitating pro-poor innovation. To accomplish this shift, a number of approaches were developed to foster innovation, by facilitating mutual learning and collective action among individuals and groups with differing, often conflicting, interests.
This paper examines the role of innovation brokers in stimulating innovation system interaction and innovation capacity building, and illustrates this by taking the case of Dutch agriculture as an example. Subsequently, it reflects upon the potential role of innovation brokers in developing countries’ agriculture. It concludes that innovation brokerage roles are likely to become relevant in emerging economies and that public or donor investment in innovation brokerage may be needed to overcome inherent tensions regarding the neutrality and funding of such players in the innovation system.
This paper presents findings of an explorative case study that looked at 22 organisations identified as fulfilling an intermediary role in the Kenyan agricultural sector. The results show that these organisations fulfill functions that are not limited to distribution of knowledge and putting it into use. The functions also include fostering integration and interaction among the diverse actors engaged in innovation networks and working on technological, organisational and institutional innovation.
This paper examines how the different institutional innovations arising from various permutations of linkages and interactions of ARD organizations (national, international advanced agricultural research centres and universities) influenced the different outcomes in addressing identified ARD problems.
The first phase in the development of the Common Framework on Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovation systems (CD for AIS) consisted of the review of the existing literature, building up a repository of relevant documentation on agricultural innovation in general and AIS and CD for AIS. This report summarizes this first phase. In particular, Section 1 covers this brief introduction. Sections two and three focus on the review of relevant literature, presenting the methodology used and the structure of the repository itself.