The innovation systems (IS) approach—developed by Richard Nelson, Christopher Freeman and Bengt-Ake Lundvall, amongst others—has become perhaps the dominant approach in the academic literature for the study of innovation. It has also exerted considerable influence on policy. This paper examines both the theory underpinning the IS approach, which bears considerable affinities with Austrian economics, and also its policy implications.
Social structure, especially in the form of social networks, affects the adoption of agricultural technologies. In light of an increasing focus on new demand-driven agricultural extension approaches that leverage social networks as an opportunity, too little is known about (a) which network characteristics matter? and (b) how do specific network characteristics matter? This paper investigates the impact of social networks in relation to smallholder dairy production technology adoption in Ethiopia.
This paper estimates the farm level impact of producer organizations’ (PO) membership in Slovakia and the effectiveness of support provided to POs under the EU Rural Development Programme (RDP). The study employ the Propensity Score Matching and Difference in Differences econometric approach on a database of large Slovak commercial farms for 2006 and 2015. First, our results show that belonging to a PO improves the economic performance of farms in Slovakia.
This paper investigates the effect of Plant Variety Protection (PVP) regulation on the governance of agri-food value chains (AFVC) with a small-scale survey of kiwi producers in Italy. We found that AFVC trading-protected (club) plant varieties are more likely to exhibit captive governance forms than those trading the free varieties. Nevertheless, the producers of club kiwis achieve higher returns from their investments and bear less risk than others.
The impact of global warming on crop growth periods and yields has been evaluated by using crop models, which need to provide various kinds of input datasets and estimate numerous parameters before simulation. Direct studies on the changes of climatic factors on the observed crop growth and yield could provide a more simple and intuitive way for assessing the impact of climate change on crop production.
With a large proportion of sub-Saharan African countries’ GDP still heavily reliant on agriculture, global trends in agri-food business are having an increasing impact on African countries. South Africa, a leader in agribusiness on the continent, has a well-established agri-food sector that is facing increasing pressure from various social and environmental sources. This paper uses interview data with corporate executives from South African food businesses to explore how they are adapting to the dual pressures of environmental change and globalisation.
Innovation platforms are groups of individuals or stakeholder representatives with different backgrounds and interests. They come together to diagnose problems, identify opportunities, and find ways to achieve their goals. When innovation platforms are set up by development projects, their processes are usually facilitated by the support organization.
Food insecurity and the weak position of smallholders in food value chains are key challenges in many low- and middle-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In order to increase food security and make agricultural value chains more inclusive, donors, governments and researchers increasingly stimulate partnerships between multiple actors, in which knowledge exchange, joint learning and knowledge co-creation play a central role in reducing the time lag between research findings and their translation into practical outcomes.
The slow rate of agricultural development in Africa can largely be blamed on lack of functional relationships between technology/innovation generation centers, local farming communities, financial institutions and markets. The result has been low penetration of promising innovations/technologies thus, low adoption levels and/ or partial adoption; and limited or no access to markets and financial services by farmers. In general, most of the innovation/technologies developed have not been extensively out-scaled; some of which are not even packaged in user friendly formats.
This toolbox has been developed to collate different tools and methods that can be used for food system analysis.
It is specifically based on systems thinking for food system analysis, with the aim to formulate actionable recommendations that can bring about systemic change.It describes both the process of a food system analysis, as well as a set of tools that can be used at different stages.