Agricultural machinery manufacturers historically referred to the intermediate players for selling, maintenance, customer service and/or training of equipment appear to interact with farmers and end-users. Intermediate players have therefore faced the burden to master the technology, in constant evolution, and the associated training needs at the interface between sophisticated equipment and the end-user and its sociological characteristics (age, education, background, etc.).
This article surveys the trends in agricultural extension programmes and services found across the world, including privatization, decentralization, and pluralism. The general movement from top-down extension services to demand-driven programmes is explored along with its impact on the skills needed by extension professionals.
mNutrition was a five-year global initiative supported by the Department for International Development (DFID) between 2013 and 2018, organised by GSMA and implemented by in-country mobile network operators (MNOs) and other providers. The evaluation was carried out by a consortium of researchers from Gamos, the Institute of Development Studies, and the International Food Policy Research Institute. This briefing summarises key evaluation findings and presents lessons learned on three key topics: 1.
The latest comprehensive research agenda in the Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension was published in 2012 (Faure, Desjeux, and Gasselin 2012), and since then there have been quite some developments in terms of biophysical, ecological, climatological, social, political and economic trends that impact farming and the transformation of agriculture and food systems at large as well as new potentially disruptive technologies.
Agricultural transformation and development are critical to the livelihoods of more than a billion small-scale farmers and other rural people in developing countries. Extension and advisory services play an important role in such transformation and can assist farmers with advice and information, brokering and facilitating innovations and relationships, and dealing with risks and disasters.
The new challenges facing the European agricultural and rural sectors call for a review of the links between knowledge production and its use to foster innovation, and for a deeper analysis of the potential of the current Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) to react to the evolving context. This paper highlights how the Italian AKIS places itself in the new emerging framework, with a particular emphasis on the incentives guiding the system and the experiences of monitoring and evaluating the national AKIS policy.
The innovation system perspective acknowledges the contributions made by all stakeholders involved in knowledge development, dissemination and appropriation. According to the specific agricultural production system, farmers adopt innovations, modify them or innovate on their own. This paper examines the role of farmers' experiments and innovations in Cuba's agricultural innovation system (AIS), identifies knowledge exchange encounters and describes some strategies implemented to institutionalize farmers' experiments and innovations.
In this paper, presented at the 12th European IFSA Symposium (Workshop: "Generating spaces for innovation in agricultural and rural development") in 2016, the authors assess the integration of new entrants to small-scale farming into agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (AKIS), in four study sites located on Europe’s periphery (Bulgaria, Poland, Portugal, and the United Kingdom).
Undertaking Capacity Needs Assessment (CNA) is critical for organizing appropriate capacity development interventions. AESA organised four workshops on CNA of EAS in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal with the following objectives.
1. Identify capacity gaps among EAS providers
2. Finalise a methodology for undertaking capacity needs assessment.
Se presenta en este documento la metodología de Escuela – Empresa desarrollada por el Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural de Colombia – Programa Oportunidades Rurales- y el Instituto Interamericano de Cooperación para la Agricultura (IICA) en 2010, como respuesta a los desafíos de fortalecimiento en capacidades de microempresarios rurales en Colombia, con una perspectiva de aplicación circunscrita inicialmente a los temas de comercialización, pero con una proyección de aplicación más allá de esta temática.