Industrial agriculture and its requirement for standardized approaches is driving the world towards a global food system, shrinking the role of farmers and shifting decision-making power. On the contrary, a holistic perspective towards a new food-system design could meet the needs of a larger share of stakeholders. Long-term experiments are crucial in this transition, being the hub of knowledge and the workshop of ‘participation in’ and ‘appropriation of’ the research in agriculture over a long term.
Since the Green Revolution, worldwide agriculture has been characterized by a typical top–down approach. The degree of autonomy, creativity, and responsibility of farmers has been limited by the continuous external inputs of chemicals, machinery, advice, subsidies and knowledge. The issue of sustainability has brought complexity and uncertainty to this mainly linear process of innovation, steering agriculture toward alternative models. Agroecology represents an innovative paradigm of agriculture in which external inputs are minimized, and the assets of the farm are greatly valued.
The purpose of the TATA-BOX project was to develop a toolbox to support local stakeholders in the design of an agroecological transition at local level. A participatory process based on existing conceptual and methodological frameworks was developed for the design of new configurations of stakeholders and resource systems in the farming systems, supply-chains and natural resources management that were to form a new agroecological territorial system. This process, presented here, was adapted and tested on two adjacent territories in south-western France.
This article describes one of the local innovations identified by the Northern Typical Highlands (NTH) platform of Prolinnova-Ethiopia: an intricate system of harvesting water from waterlogged land to allow cultivation in the long wet season, coupled with storage of this harvested water to use for supplementary irrigation in the following dry season.
This publication, consisting of several modules, includes participatory research approaches for examining a wide range of questions regarding if and how farming practices are being modified to deal with a changing environment, and the constraints and opportunities these changes pose for both men and women.
Although many agronomic researchers currently focus on designing and developing decision support systems, they rarely discuss the methodological implications of such work. In this paper, with the examples of two decision support systems, we propose methodological elements for conducting the participatory design of such tools. The authors proposition aims at building dialogue between designers and users but also between humans, tools and work situations.
The study proposes a knowledge-intensive and qualitative research methodology based on researcher-farmer participatory approach, with the aim to improve the state of knowledge on organic rice, explore the yield potential and variability, and identify the successful agronomic practices. A wide range of cropping systems placed in North Italy were monitored and analysed during three years by a multi-actor network.
In sustainability research, transdisciplinary (TD) approaches that involve practitioners in the research process have emerged as promising tools for enhancing real-world knowledge and engendering societal change. However, empirical insights into how such participation can contribute to the societal effects of TD research are scant and largely rely on single case studies, neglecting practitioners’ perceptions.
Malgré les efforts déployés ces dernières années pour améliorer la situation de l’agriculture en Afrique subsaharienne, peu de changements ont été observés. Cet insuccès est dû, en partie, au fait que ces efforts ont été consentis par diverses entités de petite taille, aux capacités de financement à court terme et sans l’expertise nécessaire pour diffuser les résultats de leurs travaux de recherche. De plus, ces initiatives ont aussi pâti de la déconnexion entre la recherche et les utilisateurs finaux.
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.