High elevation páramo (wetland) ecosystems in the Andes are important water sources for local communities and downstream agricultural and urban users. These headwater catchments, however, are often impacted by human activities (eg agricultural production) that affect both stream water quality and flow. Knowledge about water availability, quality, and use is essential for effective management but is often lacking, particularly in smaller mountain communities.
The privatization of agricultural research and extension establishments worldwide has led to the development of a market for services designed to support agricultural innovation. However, due to market and systemic failures, both supply side and demand side parties in this market have experienced constraints in effecting transactions and establishing the necessary relationships to engage in demand-driven innovation processes.
This paper examines the role of postsecondary agricultural education and training (AET) in sub-Saharan Africa in the context of the region’s agricultural innovation systems. Specifically, the paper looks at how AET in sub-Saharan Africa can contribute to agricultural development by strengthening innovative capacity, or the ability of individuals and organisations to introduce new products and processes that are socially or economically relevant, particularly with respect to smallholder farmers who represent the largest group of agricultural producers in the region.
This paper presents a case study of the work carried out by CIAT to facilitate the creation of a community of practice, using Dgroups and taking advantage of this virtual space to apply a qualitative monitoring technique called Most Significant Change. The experience reported here mixed key ingredients to create and facilitate a community of practice to facilitate knowledge sharing and communication flow among 14 learning and knowledge sharing centres in Latin America and the Caribbean.
This report compiles country-reports that describe the agri-food research landscape in 2006/2007 in 33 countries associated to the 6th Framework Programme (FP6), which defined the European for the period from 2002 to 2006. Each country-report presents information about the main research players in 2006/2007 and about the current trends and the future needs for research topics and for the organisation of the agri-food research system.
This document provides a review of existing reports regarding the agri-food research landscape in 2006/2007 for 14 EU countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey) and also explores trends and needs in other EU or associated countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom).
This report presents the results of a study that shall contribute to provide information on the national organisation of agricultural research and an overall picture of developments in agricultural research in 33 selected countries (current EU28 plus Iceland, Israel, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey). The study covers all areas related to agricultural and food research research including research dedicated to emerging challenges of the European agricultural and food sector in 2006/2007.
The ‘Mapping Report’ is the synthesis of the statistical information and the survey results available to describe agrifood research in European countries. The main source of information was the results of a bibliometric analysis (in the EU-33 countries), a web-assisted survey (in the EU-12+2 countries) and the country reports (for the EU-15 countries) prepared in the AgriMapping project frame in 2006 and 2007. When relevant, available complementary statistics were also used.
This presentation on the innovation system approach was presented to the Oromiya BoARD meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 26 July 2007.
This paper describes the research path followed by a team of researchers who had investigated the nitrate problem in a case study area, and who became aware of the low impact of their data on the policy debate and on the practices that – as the research team saw it – had given rise to the problem in the first place. They embarked on a series of interactions first with participatory action researchers from the SLIM project (see Fig.