This book collects 24 stories of change from the EU-funded CDAIS project. Launched in 2015, the overall objective of CDAIS is to make agricultural innovation systems more efficient and sustainable in meeting the demands of farmers, agri-business and consumers. The stories are about the eight pilot countries - in Africa, Asia and Latin America - in which CDAIS operates. Countries and title of the 24 stories are provided below, with date of last update for each story.
Angola:
01) From farm to agri-business (February 2018)
Innovation platforms are fast becoming part of the mantra of agricultural research and development projects and programs with an innovation objective.
A complex systems approach to innovation provides rich insights into the drivers, barriers, and key elements for innovation in rural systems. Through a case study of dry direct seeding (DDS) in smallholder systems in Laos, this article reveals a “perfect storm” of challenges and opportunities resulting in rapid adoption. Labour shortage, climate variability, and machinery availability are key factors.
Scientific research continues to play a significant role in meeting the multiple innovation challenges in agriculture. If this role is to be fulfilled, provision needs to be made for effective translation of research outputs, where translation is understood to be the process whereby science becomes part of useful knowledge for decision making. There is increasing interest in enhancing translation in the European agricultural innovation, research and policy context, and specifically in making it a more collaborative process.
This article reports on the long-term involvement of research agronomists in a design process of agricultural systems in a water catchment area. While agriculture is facing increasing challenges to meet current societal expectations, several studies in agronomy have focused on the design processes that allow farmers to change their agricultural systems.
Participatory forest management is credited for supporting social learning processes and fostering capacity of forest users for collaboration and collective actions. Despite more than a decade of practice, the empirical evidence substantiating the contribution of participatory management for the capacity development of forest users is scarce. This study assesses a participatory forest management program in Madhupur Sal forest, Bangladesh, by comparing the capacity of de-facto groups of participants and nonparticipants and identifies factors that influence the capacity development.
This document was prepared under the project Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovation Systems (CDAIS), a global partnership (Agrinatura, FAO and eight pilot countries) that aims to strengthen the capacity of countries and key stakeholders to innovate in complex agricultural systems, thereby achieving improved rural livelihoods. CDAIS uses a continuous learning cycle approach to support national agricultural innovation systems in eight countries in Africa, in Asia and Central America.
This flyer aims at promoting TAPipedia: developed within the context of Tropical Agriculture Platform (TAP), it is an information sharing system designed to enhance knowledge exchange in support of Capacity Development (CD) for Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS). TAPipedia aims to be a global information system for good CD practices, innovation outputs, success stories and lessons learned.
FAO and the Centre de Cooperation Internationale pour la Recherche et le Developpement Agricole (CIRAD) organized an expert consultation workshop on developing a methodology for assessing agricultural innovation systems. The meeting was held on 13–15 June 2018 at CIRAD Headquarters in Paris. It brought together 30 experts from academia, research, extension, the private sector, development agencies and government representatives.
This brief describes how Women in Business Development Incorporated (WIBDI), a non-profit organisation in Samoa, works with farming families to produce highvalue products for local and global markets. Shifting away from a women-focused approach, WIBDI now uses an approach that involves the whole family, keeping all family members on board. It has also invested in digital applications and resources to increase the efficiency of operations, profile the producers and their products, and facilitate engagement with markets and customers