Given the diversity and context-specificity of innovation systems approaches, in March 2007 the World Bank organized a workshop in which about 80 experts (representing donor agencies, development and related agencies, academia, and the World Bank) took stock of recent experiences with innovation systems in agriculture and reconsidered strategies for their future development. This paper summarizes the workshop findings and uses them to develop and discuss key issues in applying the innovation systems concept. The workshop’s recommendations, including next steps for the wider
This paper provides a review of agronomic management practices supporting sustainable crop production systems and intensification, and testifying to developments in the selection of crops and cultivars. The paper also describes crop farming systems taking a predominantly ecosystem approach and it discusses the scientific application of this approach for the management of pest and weed populations.
The central question in increasing productivity and generating incomes in African agriculture is how to move from technology generation to innovations that respond to constraints of agricultural production along the value chains. This question was considered in the context of subsistence agriculture, smallholder production systems, inefficient marketing and investments by the private sector, a preponderance of public interventions, and inadequate policies.
This brief explores the definition of Agricultural Knowledge and Information System (AKIS) and the inventory of AKIS in Europe.
This report assesses trends in investments, human resource capacity, and research outputs in agricultural R&D -excluding the private (for-profit) sector- in LAC. It is an update of Stads and Beintema (2009), covering a more complete set of countries and focusing primarily on developments during 2006-2012/2013.
Poor farmers seldom benefit from new agricultural technologies. In response, research and extension approaches based on agricultural innovation systems are popular. Often agricultural research organisations are the network brokers, facilitating the emergence of the innovation system. Based on an analysis of the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) initiative in Mexico, this viewpoint suggests that such organisations are more often suitable network brokers when the objective is the development and scaling out of a technology by itself.
The project of Innovation for Agriculture Training and Education (innovATE) seeks to strengthen the full range of institutions that train and educate agricultural professionals in developing and emerging economies. This capacity building will serve to build an equipped agricultural workforce that can lead to increased social and economic growth.
This work summarizes background papers prepared for the World Bank Group with significant input from government counterparts and other development partners. It takes stock of major recent developments and argues that a lot has been achieved in the last decade in terms of production of commodities for export and food consumption, with favorable impact on rural poverty reduction. It also argues that the two factors driving the recent agricultural performance, namely favorable international prices and expansion of the agricultural frontier, have reached their limits.
Cette partie a pour objectif de retracer l’histoire de la création de l’agroécologie et de comprendre les conditions qui lui permettent d’exister dans un contexte paysan rural. Depuis ces mêmes fermes, les protagonistes essayent de transmettre le sentiment et le cœur de l’agroécologie tout en laissant voir le fonctionnement du MACAC, les pratiques quotidiennes et les réflexions de chaque protagoniste.
Traditional shifting cultivation in the Amazon region has caused negative environmental and social effects due to the use of fire. This type of agriculture has been criticized because it results in emission of large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and a loss of soil productive potential.